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LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 


1 


1       SAN  DIEGO      I 


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Can  the  Dead  Communicate 
With  the  Living? 


Can  the  Dead  Communicate 
With  the  Living? 


By 
I.  M.  HALDEMAN,  D.  D. 

Author  of  "  Why  I  Preach  the  Second  Coming  of 

Christ,"  "Christian  Science  in  the  Light  of 

Holy  Scripture"  etc. 


New     York  Chicago 

Fleming     H.     Revell     Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


Wew  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      75    Princes    Street 


Contents 


I.  The  Dead 


II.  Scripture  Teaches  a  Certain  Class  of  the 

Dead  Do  Come  Back,  Enter  In  and  Possess 

THE  Bodies  of  the  Living  .  .  .12 

III.  Only    a    Special    Class  of  the  Christless 

Dead  Come  Back      .         .         .         .         .17 

IV.  Scripture  Teaches  God  Once  Permitted  a 

Prophet  to  Come  Back  from  the  Dead  and 
Talk  With  a  King  of  Israel     .         .         .21 

V.  The  Christian  Dead  Do  Not  Come  Back  ; 

Nor  Do  They  in  Any  Wise  Communicate 
With  the  Living      .....       28 

VI.  All   Purported  Communications   from    the 

Dead  Are  Made  by  Fallen  Angels    .  .        35 

VII.  These  Wandering  Spirits  Are  Also  Called 

**  Seducing  Spirits  '*  ....       64 

VIII.  The    Suffering    of  the  Christless  Dead  is 

Due  to  Their  Discarnate  State        .         .       86 

IX.  The   Future   Suffering    of  the   Christless 

Dead  Will  be  Endless  Disembodiment         .       94 

X.  The  Christian   Alone  Will  Have  Eternal 

Embodiment  ......        102 

XI.  We    Have   a   Full  Revelation  Concerning 

The  Christian  Dead         .         .         .         .106 


6  Contents 

XII.  We  Have,  Alas,  a  Full  and  Complete  Reve- 

lation Concerning  the  Christless  Dead    .      113 

XIII.  Let   Me  Warn  You   Not  to  Seek  to  the 

Dead  FOR  Information      .         .         .         .116 

XIV.  There  Never  Was  a  Time  When  Christians 

More  Needed  to  Be  on  Guard  Than  Now     127 


THE  DEAD 

THE  indescribable  war  through  whose  after- 
math the  world  is  now  passing  has  left  as 
its  memorial  a  holocaust  of  slain. 

Ten  millions  of  earth's  flower  of  young  manhood 
sleep  beneath  the  poppies  of  Flanders'  field,  beneath 
the  lilies  of  France,  the  fair,  blue  skies  of  Italy, 
the  burning  sands  of  Syrian  deserts  and  beneath 
the  snows  of  Russia — husbands,  fathers,  sons, 
brothers,  friends  and  sweethearts. 

And  the  living  will  not  let  them  go. 

They  cannot  believe  them  dead. 

They  did  not  go  as  the  dead  go — with  closed  eyes 
and  still  hands  and  feet  that  tread  no  path. 

They  went  out  from  the  midst,  leaving  the  mem- 
ory of  the  virile,  yet  tender  caress,  the  brave  smile 
that  rebuked  a  tear  and  the  high  courage  that  con- 
fronted a  sacrifice. 

They  did  not  die  as  others  die. 

They  did  not  languish  upon  beds  of  pain,  of  slow 
wasting  sickness  and  the  sullen  fires  of  unchecked 
fever. 

Faces  of  the  loved  ones  did  not  look  upon  them, 
tender  hands  from  home  did  not  soothe  them. 


8  The  Dead 

They  went  as  when  the  mower's  scythe  cuts 
down  the  ripening  grain;  as  when  rude  hands 
snatch  the  rose  from  the  flowering  bush;  as  when 
a  star  sHps  from  the  galaxies  of  the  night,  leaving 
only  the  void  of  darkness;  as  when  the  sun  goes 
down  at  noon ;  as  when  the  song  in  its  loftiest  lilt 
quivers,  breaks,  the  refrain  is  hushed  and  there  is 
only  the  chorus  of  choking  sobs  and  the  rain  of 
tears. 

And  the  living  will  not  let  them  go. 

The  father  still  dreams  of  the  plans  he  had  made 
when  the  son  of  his  pride  should  win  the  coveted 
place  and  be  to  him  as  a  bulwark,  a  refuge,  a  re- 
treat, a  consolation  in  the  deepening  shadows  of 
his  declining  years. 

The  mother  still  listens  for  the  rushing  sound  of 
boyish  footsteps  and  the  old  familiar  cry,  "  Hello ! 
Mother !  '*  entwining  in  the  lusty  accents  some  pet 
and  loving  name. 

The  sister  through  blinding  tears  keeps  dear 
memory  of  the  brawny  strength  of  a  comrade 
brother  ever  at  her  side  to  kid  and  help  her. 

The  wife  staggers  and  is  near  to  swoon  as  she 
waits  in  vain  for  the  strong  arms  that  once  framed 
her  against  a  throbbing  heart,  and  the  whispered 
words  of  loyal  love  that  thrilled  and  filled  her. 

Children  look  up  with  a  strange  wistfulness  and 
wide  eyes  of  painful  wonder  and  cannot  under- 
stand why  Father  comes  no  more. 

The  living  will  not  let  them  go. 


The  Dead   ^  9 

They  will  not  let  them  pass  beyond. 

Nay !  they  stretch  out  their  hands  and  fain  would 
so  hold  them  that  they  may  not  pass  a  moment  from 
life's  daily  ways  and  ken.  Yea,  they  make  them 
halt  and  step  out  of  the  unwonted  procession  al- 
ways gliding  to  the  night,  the  night  that  never 
turns  to  morning. 

And  Memory  comes  to  reign  and  rule  and  take 
on  strength  and  vividness  and  all  commanding 
power  that  makes  the  past  return. 

The  living  live  over  again  the  companionship  of 
their  dead.  They  walk  or  ride  or  drive  with  them 
the  old  roads,  the  fields,  the  woodlands  and  the  oft 
frequented  paths.  They  take  up  the  old  letters,  al- 
most faded,  some  of  them,  write  them  over,  type- 
write them.  They  read  into  them  or  out  of  them 
a  concept  of  character,  splendid  bravery  and  manly 
worth  such  as  they  never  dreamed  were  in  these 
dear  and  absent  lives.  They  take  up  a  book  at  a 
page  turned  down,  and  refuse  to  read  beyond. 
They  sit  in  the  room  that  was  specially  theirs  and 
breathe  in  the  lingering  atmosphere  of  sad,  of  bit- 
ter, yet  sweetest  yesterdays.  They  collect  the  pic- 
tures of  the  dear  ones,  dearest  to  them  now,  and 
arrange  them  on  desk  or  wall,  gaze  on  them  till  the 
eyes  in  the  picture  seem  to  move  and  the  lips, 
wreathed  with  the  old  smile,  almost  open  and  the 
gazer  waits  spellbound,  thinking  to  hear  them  speak 
again. 

No !  the  living  will  not  let  them  go. 


10  The  Dead 

They  reach  out  and  hold  them  with  an  intensity 
such  as  in  no  hour  did  the  Uving  ever  reach  out  and 
claim  their  dead. 

Never  since  the  world  began  did  the  living  ever 
ask  such  questions  concerning  their  dead  as  they 
are  asking  to-day ;  and  never  such  determination  to 
break  down  all  partitions  between  the  absent  some- 
what, whatever  it  may  be  that  personalized  those 
bodies  so  silent,  but  once  so  vibrant,  so  responsive 
to  the  thought  of  those  who  loved  them. 

The  intensity  and  the  longing  are  so  great  that 
though  there  be  little  noise  or  outcry,  yet  never  was 
the  world  so  conscious  of  the  tragedy  and  the  heart 
ache  that  is  uttered  in  the  simple  and  most  common 
phrase: 

"  He  is  dead." 

The  living  are  asking  three  straight  questions: 

"Where  are  they?" 

"What  are  they?" 

"Are  they?" 

And  the  response  to  these  questions  is  coming. 

It  is  coming  in  a  literature  as  thick  as  wind- 
blown leaves  of  Autumn. 

And  strangest  of  winds  blowing  them  in  heaps 
to  fill  the  counters  and  the  shelves  of  book  shops. 
Friends  are  loaning  books  about  the  dead  to  one 
another.  They  are  reading  them  in  cars,  in  the 
homes,  everywhere,  everybody  is  reading  this  sud- 
den, wide-spreading  literature. 

The  response  is  coming. 


The  Dead  11 

It  is  coming  in  a  thronging  crowd  of  mediums, 
in  mediumistic  seances,  tilting  of  tables,  in  script 
communications,  in  planchette  redivivus — in  the 
ouija  board. 

All  classes  are  engaged  in  these  things,  the  high, 
the  low,  the  rich,  the  poor,  the  uncultured  and  the 
cultured,  the  ignorant  and  the  learned,  men  of 
thought,  of  science  and  philosophy — representative 
men,  men  whose  very  names  win  attention. 

The  questions  are  coming  from  all  over  the 
world. 

Many  have  been  coming  to  me  by  letters  and  by 
personal  inquiry. 

I  shall  answer  these  questions. 

I  shall  set  forth  what  Holy  Scripture  testifies 
concerning  the  unseen  world  of  the  dead,  the  pur- 
ported communications  therefrom,  the  present 
state  of  the  dead  and  their  future. 


II 

SCRIPTURE  TEACHES  A  CERTAIN  CLASS 

OF  THE  DEAD  DO  COME  BACK,  ENTER 

IN   AND  POSSESS  THE  BODIES 

OF  THE  LIVING 

THESE  are  called  "  devils,"  but  the  word 
should  be  "  demons  ";  as  it  is  written: 
"  Now  the  Spirit  speaketh  e:^pressly, 
that  in  the  latter  times  some  shall  depart  from  the 
faith,  giving  heed  to  seducing  (wandering)  spirits, 
and  doctrines  of  devils  (demons)"  (1  Timothy 
4:1). 

That  demons  are  the  souls  of  persons  who  once 
lived  on  this  earth  is  demonstrated  by  one  of  the 
most  dramatic  scenes  in  the  New  Testament,  the 
story  of  the  demoniac  of  Gadara,  as  related  in  the 
Gospel  according  vr*  ^aint  Luke. 

Our  Lord  had  sailed  across  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 
He  landed  on  the  shore  of  Gadara.  Immediately  a 
man  came  running  down  the  hillside.  He  was  cov- 
ered with  rags  and  tatters.  Broken  chains  hung 
from  his  wrists  and  rattled  from  his  ankles  as  he 
ran.  His  hair  was  disheveled,  his  face  pale  as  the 
face  of  the  dead,  his  eyes  like  flaming  w^ells  of  fire. 
He  fell  down  at  the  feet  of  the  Lord  and  in  a  rau- 
cous voice  cried  out: 

IS 


Certain  Dead  Do  Come  Back  18 

"  What  have  I  to  do  with  thee,  Jesus,  thou  Son 
of  God  most  high?  I  beseech  thee,  torment  me 
not." 

"  What  is  thy  name?  "  inquired  the  Lord. 

He  answered: 

"  Legion ;  for  we  are  many." 

The  spirit  who  was  spokesman  for  the  rest  be- 
sought Him  that  He  would  not  cast  them  out  into 
the  deep. 

They  asked  Him  to  let  them  go  into  the  two  thou- 
sand swine  feeding  on  the  heights. 

He  gave  them  permission.  They  entered  the 
swine  and  the  whole  herd  ran  violently  down  and 
were  choked  in  the  sea. 

The  word  "  deep  "  is  the  key  that  demonstrates 
and  explains  the  identity  of  the  spirits. 

To  the  average  reader,  because  of  the  proximity 
of  the  scene  to  the  lake,  the  conclusion  would  be 
that  it  was  the  lake  that  was  meant  by  the  word 
"  deep." 

A  moment's  consideration  will  show  this  could 
not  be. 

Spirits  are  immaterial,  impalpable  things.  They 
could  have  no  fear  of  water.  The  lake  could  pro- 
duce no  effect  upon  them. 

The  word  "  deep  "  is  "  abyss." 

"Abyss"  in  the  New  Testament  signifies 
"hades." 

Hades  of  the  New  Testament  is  "  sheol,"  of  the 
Old. 


14          Certain  Dead  Do  Come  Back 

Sheol  or  hades  is  the  abode  of  the  disembodied 
souls  of  those  who  once  lived  on  earth. 

Before  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
all  the  disembodied  dead  went  thither,  the  righteous 
and  the  unrighteous. 

The  unrighteous  went  into  a  portion  belonging 
to  them. 

The  righteous  went  into  another  separated  from 
it  by  a  fixed  gulf  and  known  in  our  Lord's  day  as 
"Abraham's  Bosom.'* 

That  this  is  no  mere  Jewish  legend  or  orna- 
mentation of  perfervid  and  undisciplined  imagina- 
tion is  demonstrated  in  the  story  (by  no  sane  exe- 
gesis can  it  be  called  a  parable)  of  the  Rich  Man 
and  Lazarus. 

The  Rich  Man  is  seen  in  that  part  of  hades  which 
he  himself  styles  as  "  this  place  of  torment " ;  while 
Lazarus  and  Abraham  are  visible  across  the 
"  fixed  "  gulf  in  the  location  called  by  our  Lord 
Himself — "Abraham's  Bosom." 

Shortly  before  He  died  our  Lord  announced  He 
would  be  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  heart  of 
the  earth. 

"The  heart  of  the  earth"  is  equivalent  to 
"  abyss,"  "  bottomless  pit,"  and  signifies  "  hades," 
the  unseen  world  of  the  dead. 

Just  before  He  died  He  said  to  the  repentant 
thief  (whom  with  His  nailed  hands  He  snatched 
from  the  depths  of  perdition)  "  To-day  shalt  thou 
be  with  me  in  paradise." 


Certain  Dead  Do  Come  Back         15 

As  by  His  announcement  that  He  would  be 
three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  heart  of  the  eartii 
He  affirmed  He  would  descend  into  hades ;  as  hades 
is  the  abode  of  the  disembodied  dead,  then  when 
He  died  He  did  descend  into  hades;  and  as  He 
promised  the  thief  should  go  with  Him  that  day, 
then  that  day  both  He  and  the  thief  descended  into 
hades;  as  the  holy  and  sinless  Son  of  God  could 
not  go  into  that  portion  called  "  this  place  of  tor- 
ment," He  did  go  into  the  abode  reserved  for  the 
righteous,  into  that  part  called  "Abraham's 
Bosom,"  and  took  the  thief  whom  He  had  par- 
doned with  Him. 

On  the  third  day  He  rose  from  the  dead  and,  ac- 
cording to  Saint  Paul  in  the  fourth  of  Ephesians, 
took  up  with  Him  the  souls  of  the  righteous  dead, 
including  the  thief,  and  took  them  unto  the  third 
heaven  and  then  into  paradise,  and  finally  into  the 
'New  Jerusalem,  the  place  He  went  to  prepare. 

Since  that  day  the  dead  who  die  in  the  Lord  de- 
part to  be  with  Christ  in  Heaven;  wherefore  it  is 
v/ritten: 

"Absent  from  our  home,  out  of  the  body,  and 
immediately  present  at  our  home — with  the  Lord." 

Only  the  Chrlstless  dead  now  descend  into  hades. 
They  descend  where  the  Rich  Man  was  seen,  into 
the  "  place  of  torment." 

As  the  spirits  who  infested  the  man  of  Gadara 
plead  that  they  might  not  be  sent  into  the  "  deep  " ; 
as  the  deep  is  hades ;  and  as  only  the  souls  of  those 


16         Certain  Dead  Do  Come  Back 

who  once  lived  on  earth  and  died  could  go  there, 
then  these  demons  were  the  disembodied  souls  of 
human  beings;  and  as  they  were  disembodied 
spirits,  then  they  had  already  been  in  hades  and 
were  pleading  with  the  Lord  that  He  would  not 
send  them  back. 


Ill 

ONLY   A   SPECIAL   CLASS   OF   THE 
CHRISTLESS  DEAD  COME  BACK 

THEY     are     called     "  unclean "     spirits, 
"  wicked  "  spirits. 
They  are  the  vile,  unspeakably  vicious, 
monstrous  and  outbreaking  sinners  of  the  earth. 

The  Son  of  God  gives  a  description  of  some  of 
them. 

He  says: 

"  When  the  unclean  spirit  is  gone  out  of  a  man, 
he  walketh  through  dry  places  (literally,  "  water- 
less place,"  that  is,  "  hades,"  where  the  rich  man 
could  not  find  a  drop  of  water;  the  place  of  which 
Zechariah,  the  prophet,  speaks  as,  "  the  pit  without 
water  ")  seeking  rest,  and  findeth  none, 

"  Then  he  saith,  I  will  return  into  my  house  from 
whence  I  came  out ;  and  when  he  is  come,  he  findeth 
it  empty,  swept  and  garnished. 

"  Then  goeth  he,  and  taketh  with  himself  seven 
other  spirits  more  wicked  than  himself,  and  they 
enter  in  and  dwell  there:  and  the  last  state  of  that 
man  is  worse  than  the  first." 

While  it  is  true  the  "unclean"  spirit  is  the 
spirit  of  idolatry,  nevertheless,  the  Apostle  Paul 

*7 


18       The  Christless  Dead  Come  Back 

tells  us  the  sacrifice  that  is  offered  to  idols  is 
in  reality  offered  to  "  demons  " ;  while  it  is  true  our 
Lord  is  forecasting  the  hour  when  the  Jewish  na- 
tion after  the  translation  of  the  Church  shall  fall 
down  and  worship  the  image  set  up  by  Anti-Christ 
(as  of  old  that  of  the  Roman  Emperor  was  set  up) 
yet  is  he  giving  the  description  of  an  actual  fact 
and  corroborates  the  statement  that  the  wicked 
dead  can  come  out  of  hades,  enter  in  and  dwell  in 
the  bodies  of  men  as  their  houses. 

They  break  out  of  hades  as  prisoners  break  out 
of  jail. 

They  are  jail  breakers. 

And  just  as  jail  breakers  are  in  collusion  with 
those  outside  they  find  the  Devil  outside  (he  is  not 
in  hades  and  will  not  be  till  the  beginning  of  the 
thousand  years,  the  millennium)  and  obtain  from 
him  all  the  aid  they  need. 

They  bring  no  revelation  from  hades. 

They  attempt  no  description  of  the  world  of  the 
dead. 

They  have  but  one  purpose  in  coming  forth. 

They  seek  to  incarnate  themselves. 

They  seek  bodies  as  the  instrument  to  carry  out 
their  own  sinful,  infamous  and  filthy  desires.  They 
seek  naturally  the  bodies  of  those  who  have  culti- 
vated the  sins  and  moral  diseases  akin  to  their  own. 

The  effect  upon  the  bodies  of  those  whom  they 
possess  is  disastrous. 

They  ruin  the  mind. 


The  Christless  Dead  Come  Back       19 

They  ruin  health  and  happiness. 

Many  of  the  diseases  which  the  most  scientific 
diagnostician  cannot  determine,  and  the  most  skil- 
ful practitioner  cannot  cure,  may  be  accounted  for 
by  demon  possession  as  in  the  days  of  the  Lord. 

And  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  He  performed 
his  mightiest  cures  by  casting  the  demons  out  of 
the  afflicted  as  the  efficient  cause  of  all  their  trouble. 

In  very  significant  language  we  are  told: 

"  He  went  about  doing  good  (mark  what  kind 
of  good)  healing  all  that  were  oppressed  (under 
the  power)  of  the  Devil." 

According  to  the  word  of  prophecy  just  before 
the  Coming  of  the  Son  of  God  to  this  world  again 
the  pit  will  be  widely  opened  and,  as  a  spiritualist 
once  expressed  it:  "  they  will  come  a  great  horde  " 
in  riotous  invasion,  running,  flying,  leaping,  curs- 
ing until  the  very  heart  of  men  shall  be  submerged 
and  hopelessly  polluted  by  the  "  ghostly  canaille." 
They  will  so  come  tumultuously  and  insanely  frol- 
licking  and  full  of  the  deviltry  of  their  malicious 
filthiness  and  unspeakable  iniquity;  they  will  so 
thoroughly  seize  and  possess  men  and  use  every 
faculty  and  organ  for  themselves  to  gratify  their 
own  desires  that  for  a  prophesied  five  months  men 
driven  mad,  wholly  beside  themselves  will  seek 
death ;  but  death,  we  are  told,  will  flee  from  them ; 
they  will  be  baffled  and  held  in  life  by  their  tor- 
mentors in  their  determination  not  to  go  back  to 
the  pit  from  which  they  come ;  they  will  so  control 


20       The  Christless  Dead  Come  Back 

them  that  none  during  that  agonizing  period  of  de- 
sire for  suicide  will  be  able  to  accomplish  his 
attempt. 

"And  he  opened  the  bottomless  pit  (hades)  ;  and 
there  arose  a  smoke  out  of  the  pit,  as  the  smoke  of 
a  great  furnace  (the  rich  man  in  hades  said,  *  I 
am  tormented  in  this  flame  ')  ;  and  the  sun  and  the 
air  were  darkened  by  reason  of  the  smoke  of  the 
pit. 

"And  there  came  out  of  the  smoke  locusts 
(demons)  upon  the  earth:  and  unto  them  was 
given  power,  as  the  scorpions  of  the  earth  have 
power." 

They  were  commanded  to  hurt  only  those  men 
which  should  not  have  the  seal  of  God  in  their 
foreheads. 

"And  to  them  it  was  given  that  they  should  not 
kill  them,  but  that  they  should  be  tormented  five 
months.     .     .     . 

"And  in  those  days  shall  men  seek  death,  and 
shall  not  find  it ;  and  shall  desire  to  die,  and  death 
shall  flee  from  them  "  (Revelation  9:  2-6). 


IV 

SCRIPTURE  TEACHES  GOD  ONCE  PER- 
MITTED A  PROPHET  TO  COME  BACK 
FROM  THE  DEAD  AND  TALK 
WITH  A  KING  OF  ISRAEL 

THAT  prophet  was  Samuel. 
The  king  was  Saul. 
The    conditions    and    circumstances    in 
Saul's  case  were  intense. 

Samuel  was  dead. 

Saul  had  gone  from  bad  to  worse. 

He  had  fallen  down  from  his  plane  of  splendid 
possibilities  as  a  king.  He  had  been  swallowed  up 
in  his  madness  of  jealousy,  envy  and  ambition. 
He  had  yielded  his  soul  to  hatred  and  its  final  out- 
come of  murder  in  intent  and  attempt.  He  had 
turned  from  the  Lord.  He  no  longer  sought  the 
mind  and  will  of  God  in  His  Word.  He  had 
leaned  to  his  own  understanding  and  had  followed 
his  own  will,  sought  only  to  satisfy  his  own  desires. 
The  Lord  had  turned  from  him  and  had  given  him 
up  to  his  own  way  and  the  disasters  he  was  logically 
bringing  upon  his  own  head.  He  was  surrounded 
by  enemies.  The  Philistines  were  marshalling 
their  hosts  against  him.    He  was  at  his  wit's  end. 

21 


22  A  Prophet  Once  Came  Back 

He  looked  upon  the  coming  morrows  and  the  im- 
pending conflict  with  a  mind  and  heart  thoroughly- 
disintegrated.  He  was  filled  with  fear  and  despair. 
The  priests  could  give  him  no  wisdom.  He  could 
get  no  response,  neither  by  Urim  nor  Thummim. 
He  thought  involuntarily  of  Samuel.  Samuel  it  is 
true  again  and  again  had  hewed  him  with  the 
Word  of  the  Lord  and  had  been  the  messenger  of 
the  Lord's  judgment  against  him;  nevertheless,  he 
fain  would  hear  from  him  as  of  old.  If  he  were 
alive  he  would  go  to  him  and  seek  his  counsel. 
Why  not  seek  it  now  ?  Samuel  was,  indeed,  dead ; 
but  there  were  those  who  had  the  power,  it  was 
said,  to  bring  the  dead  up  from  hades  and  compel 
them  to  speak.  Then  he  remembered  he  had  but 
lately  sent  out  an  edict  against  all  who  had  familiar 
spirits,  an  edict  which  called  for  death  of  medium, 
wizard  or  necromancer ;  but,  it  was  possible  the  law 
had  not  been  carried  out  strictly. 

No  sooner  was  the  idea  in  his  mind  than  it  held 
him. 

He  made  known  his  desire  to  some  of  the  inti- 
mates of  his  court. 

There  were  two  who  knew  of  a  woman  who  had 
a  familiar  spirit,  a  trance  medium.  She  lived  amid 
the  rocks  at  Endor. 

He  determined  to  go  see  her  and  use  her  powers. 

He  had  fallen  very  low. 

He  was  making  himself  a  willing  instrument  not 
only  to  violate  the  law  of  God,  but  to  violate  his 


A  Prophet  Once  Came  Back         23 

own  promulgation  of  that  law  and  in  trampling  on 
his  own  edict  to  trample  on  his  own  dignity  and 
honour  as  king  and  guardian  of  the  laws.  He  was 
willing  to  shame  himself  before  the  men  over  whom 
he  should  maintain  himself  in  righteousness  and 
faithfulness. 

He  disguised  himself. 

He  took  his  two  intimates  with  him. 

They  mounted  their  horses  and  rode  toward 
Endor. 

They  rode  on  in  the  night. 

They  rode  to  Endor. 

The  king  forced  his  horse  up  the  rocky  defile  to 
the  cave  where  the  woman  dwelt. 

Ears  that  were  alert  would  have  heard  the  hoofs 
of  the  king's  horse  ring  out  on  the  startled  night. 

The  streams  from  the  upper  ridges  plashed  and 
gurgled  like  voices  that  whispered  and  laughed. 

The  winds  were  astir  and  full  of  moanings. 

The  low  hung  branches  of  the  sparse  trees  swept 
the  king's  face  as  he  bent  low  to  the  ears  of  his 
horse's  head  as  though,  like  clutching  hands,  they 
would  hold  him  back. 

The  stars  gleamed  out  from  the  night  like 
watching  and  sorrowful  eyes. 

They  reached  the  cave.  A  light  shone  through 
the  crevice  of  the  rude  door. 

They  knocked. 

The  door  was  opened  and  the  woman  shrank 
back. 


24  A  Prophet  Once  Came  Back 

The  king  bent  from  his  great  height  and  told 
her  his  errand.  He  had  come  that  she  might  bring 
up  from  the  dead  him  whom  he  should  name  to  her. 

She  protested. 

Did  they  not  know  Saul,  the  king,  had  lately 
sent  out  an  edict  ordering  all  who  had  familiar 
spirits  to  be  put  to  death  ?  She  was  sure  they  had 
come  to  spy  her  out  and  put  her  life  in  jeopardy. 
She  was  not  willing  to  have  aught  to  do  with  them. 
She  would  not  lend  herself  to  her  own  destruction. 

Then  the  king  swore  by  the  Lord  God  that  no 
harm  should  befall  her. 

Thus  he  swore,  he  who  had  broken  the  law 
of  God  and  was  now  violating  his  own  edict,  that 
he  would  keep  faith  with  her.  He  swore  should 
she  yield  to  his  request  she  should  be  safe. 

Then  she  asked  him  whom  she  should  bring  up? 

He  bade  her  bring  up  Samuel,  the  prophet. 

The  woman  was  a  medium  with  the  "  control " 
of  a  familiar  spirit.  She  expected  to  go  into  a 
trance  and  then  the  spirit  making  use  of  her  organs 
of  speech,  but  simulating  them  as  from  the  depths 
of  the  earth  like  a  ventriloquist,  would  personate 
Samuel  and  fool  Saul. 

Suddenly  the  woman  gave  a  shriek. 

All  unexpectedly  to  her  and  her  "  control "  she 
saw  a  spirit  rising  like  a  wraith  from  the  earth, 
becoming  fixed  and  standing  there  as  an  ac- 
cusing thing,  dreadful  and  terrible  in  its  very 
silence   and   mystery.     She   was   overcome   with 


A  Prophet  Once  Came  Back  25 

horror.  She  had  played  her  game  of  deception  a 
long  while.  She  had  had  intercourse  with  the 
familiar  spirit  and  knew  the  power  of  such;  but 
this  was  a  reality  out  of  the  realm  of  the  dead. 
With  shivering  fear  and  in  accents  of  terror  she 
turned  to  Saul,  crying  out: 

"Why  hast  thou  deceived  me?  for  thou  art 
Saul." 

The  king  bade  her  not  to  be  afraid,  but  tell  him 
what  she  saw. 

She  told  him  she  saw  gods  ascending  out  of  the 
earth. 

To  her  terrified  vision  they  were  many. 

All  intent  upon  his  own  idea,  thinking  only  of 
one  person,  of  Samuel  alone,  the  king  inquired  of 
the  woman  what  form  he  was. 

She  answered  that  she  saw  an  old  man  coming 
up  and  he  was  covered  with  a  mantle. 

Then  we  are  told  Saul  himself  perceived  it  was 
Samuel  and  stooping  down  low  before  him  listened 
to  the  voice  that  came  from  him. 

From  that  moment,  according  to  the  divine 
record,  all  the  conversation  is  between  Saul  and 
Samuel.  The  woman  has  no  relation  to  it.  She 
becomes  a  mere  side  figure  in  the  scene. 

Samuel  actually  came  back  and  was  materialized. 

It  was  an  amazing  spectacle. 

That  wraith  in  the  dimness  and  shadows  of  the 
cave,  the  flickering  light  of  the  lamp  only  making 
the  obscurity  and  mystery  more  intense,  and  Saul 


26         A  Prophet  Once  Came  Back 

bowed,  shivering  and  listening  to  the  solemn  words 
of  his  doom. 

Samuel  asks  him  why,  since  the  Lord  has 
turned  away  from  him  and  he  has  himself  acknowl- 
edged it,  why  has  he  come  to  seek  v/isdom  from 
the  dead ;  why  will  he  listen  to  him  dead  whom  he 
so  wilfully  resisted  when  alive?  He  tells  him  his 
present  state  is  as  he  had  been  forewarned;  tells 
him  the  kingdom  has  been  rent  from  him  and  given 
to  that  David  against  whom  he  had  sought  to  act 
so  murderously,  that  his  army  should  be  defeated, 
put  to  flight,  and  he  and  his  sons  be  slain. 

When  Saul  heard  that  he  fell  all  his  length  on 
the  floor  of  the  cave.  So  sore  was  his  state  the 
woman  was  moved  with  compassion  for  him  and, 
setting  food  before  him,  insisted  he  should  eat. 

He  took  a  little  and  then  with  his  companions 
rode  away  into  the  fateful  night. 

No  revelation  did  Samuel  give  concerning  him- 
self and  the  state  of  those  in  the  underworld  of  the 
dead.  He  says  simply  that  he  had  been  in  a  con- 
dition of  quiet  and  rest  and  Saul's  intrusion  had 
disturbed  him. 

From  Genesis  to  Revelation  this  is  the  only  in- 
stance in  Holy  Scripture  where  God  permitted  the 
dead  in  Christ  to  come  back  and  hold  communica- 
tion with  the  living. 

Samuel  came  back  because  God  sent  him  to 
verify  the  truth  of  the  warnings  He  had  previ- 
ously given  by  the  prophet  and  as  a  climacteric 


A  Prophet  Once  Came  Back         27 

judgment  against  Saul.  He  would  punish  him  not 
only  for  the  evil  of  his  course  in  turning  away  from 
the  Word  of  the  Lord  so  plainly  and  specially  given 
him  through  the  prophet,  but  because  he  had  broken 
the  law  against  seeking  communication  from  the 
dead,  had  doubly  broken  it  in  that  he  had  trans- 
gressed his  own  edict  and  put  his  office  as  king  to 
shame. 

Therefore  it  was  the  Lord  who  slew  him,  caused 
him  to  die  in  the  hour  of  battle;  as  it  is  written: 

"  So  Saul  died  for  his  transgression  which  he 
committed  against  the  Lord,  even  against  the  word 
of  the  Lord,  which  he  kept  not,  and  also  for  asking 
counsel  of  one  that  had  a  familiar  spirit,  to  inquire 
of  it.  And  inquired  not  of  the  Lord ;  therefore  he 
slew  him,  and  turned  the  kingdom  unto  David,  the 
son  of  Jesse." 


THE    CHRISTIAN    DEAD    DO    NOT    COME 
BACK;  NOR  DO  THEY  IN  ANY  WISE 
COMMUNICATE  WITH  THE  LIVING 

THIS  negative  proposition  is  sustained  by 
presumptive,  direct  and  corroborative 
evidence. 

The  evidence  is  presumptive. 

For  a  Christian  to  leave  Heaven  and  come  to 
this  world  to  communicate  with  the  living  through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  medium,  that  Christian 
would  have  to  enter  into  a  conspiracy  with  the 
medium  to  inspire  the  people  of  God  to  violate  the 
law  by  which  He  forbids  them  to  seek  communi- 
cation with  the  dead.  Since  the  law  which  forbids 
the  people  of  God  to  hold  communion  with  the  dead 
is  equally  authoritative  for  the  people  of  God  who 
have  died  that  they  should  not  consent  to  hold 
communion,  then  the  Christian  in  Heaven  who 
should  respond  to  the  medium  or  the  call  of  any 
one  on  earth  would  be  seeking  to  have  the  law  of 
God  broken  by  both  the  living  and  the  dead. 

Can  you  conceive  of  a  Christian  in  Heaven,  in 
the  company  of  the  holy  prophets,  the  holy  apostles, 
saints  and  angels  of  God,  and  in  the  presence  of 
Him  who  has  redeemed  them  and  lifted  them  into 

98 


Christian  Dead  Do  Not  Come  Back    29 

the  Heaven  place,  into  that  court  where  holiness  is 
the  fashion,  where  all  insincerity  and  rebellion  and 
all  lawlessness  are  banished;  can  you  conceive  of 
such  an  one  entering  into  collusion  with  the  sinful 
of  earth  against  the  Lord  in  Heaven? 

Such  a  proposition  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
thing  is  not  thinkable. 

If  it  is  not  thinkable,  it  is  not  debatable. 

Again: 

It  is  Impossible  for  any  soul  to  leave  Heaven  and 
enter  into  conspiracy  for  this  double  violation  with- 
out the  permission  and  exercised  power  of  the 
Lord. 

For  such  an  one  to  leave  Heaven  under  the  man- 
date of  the  Lord  would  be  to  carry  authority  to 
any  and  all  on  earth  to  seek  to  the  dead  and  thus 
testify  the  Lord  delighted  to  break  His  own  law 
and  nullify  and  dishonour  His  own  Word. 

Is  that  thinkable? 

By  the  wildest  stretch  of  imagination  or  the  sur- 
render of  most  ordinary  and  commonplace  logic  it 
is  not  thinkable. 

If  it  is  not  thinkable  it  is  not  open  to  discussion. 

It  may  be  offered  as  an  objection  that  the  case  of 
Samuel  Is  a  precedent  wherein  the  Lord  violated 
His  own  law  In  sending  him  back  from  the  dead. 

The  answer  is,  the  Lord  sent  him  not  as  an 
encouragement  to  men  to  seek  unto  the  dead,  but 
as  a  judgment  against  the  very  thing. 

He  slew  Saul  because  he  had  entered  into  a  con- 


80    Christian  Dead  Do  Not  Come  Back 

spiracy  with  a  medium  to  hold  communication  with 
the  dead. 

The  death  of  Saul  is  the  most  dynamic  denun- 
ciation of  God  against  those  who  do  seek  to  have 
that  communication. 

The  death  of  Saul  was  Qod's  affirmation  of  His 
law  against  seeking  to  the  dead  and  a  terrific  wit- 
ness of  God's  integrity  behind  His  law. 

Samuel  came  back,  as  he  had  been  on  earth,  the 
minister  of  God's  judgment. 

His  coming  back  and  the  manner  of  it,  together 
with  the  death  and  disaster  that  followed  is  a 
witness  that  his  case  was  an  exception  and 
intended  to  emphasize  the  law  of  God  against  either 
the  return  of  the  dead  or  the  seeking  thereto. 

The  evidence  is  direct. 

In  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  Revelation  we  learn 
so  soon  as  the  dead  in  Christ  reach  Heaven  they 
are  anxious  to  have  the  news  of  those  whom  they 
have  left  on  earth. 

It  is  a  presumptive  proposition  and  yet  directly 
logical  to  say,  had  they  had  both  permission  and 
power  to  come  back  and  see  for  themselves  or  by 
any  means  to  hold  communication  with  those  on 
earth,  both  for  their  own  sakes  as  a  matter  of  com- 
fort and  to  give  the  comfort  of  first  hand  assurance 
to  the  others,  they  would  come  at  once. 

The  record  settles  the  question. 

So  far  from  coming  back  or  being  permitted  to 
come  back  they  are  told  to  rest — and  the  sense  of 


Christian  Dead  Do  Not  Come  Back    31 

the  word  is  to  halt,  to  stay  where  they  are;  then 
the  angels  who,  in  this  book  of  the  Revelation,  are 
the  active  figures  of  communication,  tell  them  some 
news  concerning  those  for  whom  they  have  in- 
quired. 

"  It  was  said  unto  them  that  they  should  rest." 

That  is,  it  was  said  unto  them  they  should 
remain  where  they  were  and  be  in  a  state  of  re- 
freshment and  rest. 

That  is  evidence  enough  and  direct  enough. 

The  evidence  is  still  further  direct. 

The  dead  who  depart  to  be  with  Christ  cannot 
return  till  the  Lord  returns  in  the  morning  of  the 
resurrection. 

This  is  the  testimony  of  Job. 

He  says: 

"All  the  days  of  my  appointed  time  will  I  wait 
till  my  change  come." 

He  has  been  asking  himself  the  question  about 
death. 

If  he  dies  shall  he  live  again? 

He  is  not  raising  any  question  about  continued 
existence,  but,  rather,  whether  he  shall  come  forth 
again  in  bodily  form. 

He  answers  his  own  question. 

He  will  descend  into  hades.  His  body  will  be- 
come but  a  bundle  of  bones;  yet  he  esteems  this 
body  Is  the  work  of  the  Lord's  hands.  With  the 
Psalmist  he  looks  upon  himself  as  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  made.     The  Lord  will  remember  this 


32    Christian  Dead  Do  Not  Come  Back 

work  of  His  hands.  He  will  have  a  desire  for  it. 
He  has  appointed  a  time  when  He  will  call  it  forth. 
That  time  we  now  know  is  the  First  Resurrection 
at  the  Second  Coming  of  our  Lord.  He  says  his 
Redeemer  will  call.  Job  will  answer.  He  shall 
come  forth  and  see  Him  face  to  face. 

But  he  says: 

"All  the  days  of  my  appointed  time  I  will  wait." 

We  know  when  the  Lord  ascended  He  took  Job 
along  with  the  rest  of  the  saints  in  hades  to  Heaven 
with  Himself;  that,  therefore,  now,  he  is  to  rest 
in  Heaven  till  the  morning  without  clouds. 

"  I  will  wait." 

The  word  means — to  tarry. 

He  will  tarry  where  he  now  is  till  the  Lord  shall 
come  again. 

The  Psalmist  utters  the  same  thought 

He  says: 

**  Weeping  may  endure  for  a  night,  but  joy  Com- 
eth in  the  morning," 

He  is  thinking  of  the  morning  of  the  resurrec- 
tion. 

In  another  psalm  he  expresses  the  effect  the 
resurrection  morning  will  have  upon  him. 

He  says: 

"As  for  me  I  will  behold  thy  face  in  righteous- 
ness. I  shall  be  satisfied  when  I  awake  with  thy 
likeness." 

The  Old  Testament  saints  knew  only  of  hades 
as  their  resting  place  till  the  morning;  but  they 


Christian  Dead  Do  Not  Come  Back    33 

knew  they  would  rest  and  have  no  further  relation 
with  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  till  that  great 
morning.  When  we  come  to  the  New  Testament 
we  find  Paul  comforting  the  Thessalonian  saints 
concerning  their  dead  in  Christ  with  a  special  reve- 
lation from  the  Lord.  He  bids  them  not  to  sorrovir 
as  others  which  have  no  hope.  The  comfort  with 
which  he  comforts  them  is  neither  that  they  shall 
die  and  go  to  Heaven,  nor  that  those  who  are  there 
can  come  forth  in  their  disembodied  state;  but 
that  the  Lord  Himself  is  coming  (and  may  come 
any  time)  to  bring  them  from  Heaven  and  their 
bodies  from  the  grave,  unite  them,  make  their 
bodies  immortal,  and  bring  both  the  dead  and  the 
living  together  in  the  beauty  and  the  glory  of  that 
triumphant  morning. 

This  unbreakable,  direct  evidence  is  corrobo- 
rated. 

It  is  corroborated  by  the  scene  in  hades  between 
the  rich  man  and  Abraham. 

The  rich  man  pleads  that  Abraham  will  send 
Lazarus  back  to  his  father's  house  that  he  may 
warn  his  five  brothers  that  they  may  not  come  into 
"  this  place  of  torment." 

Abraham  refuses. 

He  will  not  allow  Lazarus  to  go.  He  cannot 
leave  his  place  of  rest. 

If  the  pleading  of  one  who  has  been  shut  out 
from  all  hope  and  who  Is  filled  with  evangelistic 
fervour,   even  though   its  objective  be  selfishly 


34    Christian  Dead  Do  Not  Come  Back 

limited  to  the  pleading  for  his  own  family  cannot 
prevail;  if  the  intensity  of  his  realization  of  the 
awful  misery  into  which  he  had  fallen  could  not 
succeed  in  bringing  Lazarus  back  as  a  witness  of 
continued  existence  and  as  a  terrific  warning  to  the 
living,  neither,  and  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  can 
the  effort  of  any  medium  succeed  in  bringing  from 
Heaven  and  its  ordained,  uninterrupted  peace 
those  who  have  entered  there. 

This  corroborative  evidence  is  itself  corroborated 
and  strengthened  by  the  moral  reason  Abraham 
gives  why  Lazarus  could  not  be  sent  back.  He 
says  the  five  brethren  have  Moses  and  the  prophets 
and  must  hear  them;  that  in  them  is  the  way  of 
salvation  and  all  the  warning  needed  to  enable  them 
to  shun  the  prison  place  of  the  lost. 

This  is  simply  saying  the  Lord  God  has  shut  the 
world  up  to  the  written  revelation  which  He  Him- 
self has  given. 

This  is  in  accord  with  what  the  prophet  Isaiah 
had  said: 

"  Should  not  a  people  seek  unto  their  God  ?  ** 

"  Should  the  living  seek  unto  the  dead  ?  " 

Nay !  there  is  no  need. 

"  To  the  law  and  to  the  testimony." 

Beyond  all  question  then  the  Word  of  the  living 
God  teaches  the  Christian  dead  do  not  come  back, 
nor  do  they  in  any  manner  whatsoever  hold  com- 
munication with,  nor  give  communications  or  mes- 
sages to  the  living. 


VI 

ALL    PURPORTED    COMMUNICATIONS 

FROM    THE    DEAD    ARE    MADE 

BY  FALLEN  ANGELS 

THESE  angels  are  divided  into  two  classes. 
Those  angels  who  in  the  antediluvian 
age  left  their  own  habitation  in  one  of  the 
upper  worlds,  came  down  to  earth  and  entered  in 
unto  the  daughters  of  men  whose  beauty  had 
tempted  them  and  begot  a  hybrid  race  called  giants, 
or  the  nephilim,  beings  half  angel,  half  man,  the 
persons  who  are  spoken  of  in  classic  literature  as 
the  demi-gods,  the  mighty  ones  who  figure  more  or 
less  in  the  lore  of  all  nations;  figure  there  with  all 
the  added  fancies  and  imaginations  of  men,  because 
the  primal  revelation  given  of  God  fell  from  their 
hands ;  and,  as  when  a  vase  on  which  a  portrait  has 
been  painted  falls,  is  broken,  and  different  hands 
pick  up  the  fragments,  so  that  each  has  a  part,  but 
an  incomplete  part  of  the  whole,  even  so  among  the 
nations  scattered  after  the  flood,  each  had  a  frag- 
ment of  the  truth,  polished  and  embellished  to  suit 
the  desire. 

The  Lord  caused  the  sinning  angels  to  be  ar- 
rested. 

35 


36    Communications  From  Fallen  Angels 

They  were  taken  down  as  prisoners  to  a  place  of 
imprisonment  below  hades,  or  the  very  lowest  part 
of  hades  called  tartarus  and,  according  to  the 
Apostle  Peter  writing  under  the  inspiration  of 
God,  shut  up  in  dark  cells,  chained  and  held  there 
until  the  final  judgment  day  when  the  Lord  shall 
settle  all  things. 

The  other  fallen  angels  are  those  who  took  part 
in  the  rebellion  of  Satan. 

Satan  was  the  first  being  created. 

He  is  called,  "  Son  of  the  morning,"  "  the  morn- 
ing star,"  and  "  Lucifer,  the  Light-bearer." 

Speaking  by  the  mouth  of  Ezeklel,  the  Lord  says 
he  was  created  perfect  in  all  his  ways. 

He  was  full  of  wisdom.  He  was  perfect  in 
beauty.  He  was,  next  to  God,  supreme  in 
power. 

Because  of  this  exalted  endowment  and  equip- 
ment the  Lord  God  appointed  him  to  be  prince 
of  this  earth  when  it  was  first  created. 

He  gave  him  the  cherubim  to  be  associated  with 
him  in  the  perfect  earth  which  He  had  created  as 
a  particular  province  in  His  measureless  empire. 

The  beauty  of  Lucifier,  his  genius,  his  splendour, 
his  power  and  his  superiority  to  others  were  his 
ruin. 

He  became  self-conscious  and  filled  with  auda- 
cious ambition — an  ambition  that  fitted  his  great- 
ness. 

He  was  not  willing  to  be  a  subordinate  God. 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    37 

He  was  not  willing  to  rule  the  world  as  the  vice- 
gerent of  God. 

He  determined  to  rule  the  world  for  himself. 
He  would  be  its  God,  independent  and  unhampered 
of  God. 

It  was  an  issue  of  personality  in  respect  to  pre- 
eminence, dignity  and  will. 

Here  was  the  origin  of  sin. 

All  sin  in  its  essence  and  consequence  is  rooted 
in  one  thing — the  clash  of  any  personal  will  with 
the  will  of  God. 

The  will  of  Lucifer  clashed  with  the  will  of  God. 

It  was  an  assault  upon  the  supremacy  of  the 
eternal,  not  in  power,  for  there  was  no  possibility 
of  competition  in  that,  the  creature  with  the 
Creator — but — in  will. 

This  clash  with  the  will  of  God  was  high 
treason. 

This  was  sin. 

The  sin  of  self-will,  self -exaltation  in  a  creature 
of  God  was  the  matrix  out  of  which  has  come 
forth  all  other  sin. 

In  thus  exalting  himself  against  God  Lucifer 
became — Satan ;  for  "  satan  "  means,  "  adversary." 

In  justification  of  himself  he  accused  the  Lord 
(as  afterward  he  accused  Him  before  man).  In 
becoming  the  accuser  of  God  he  became — ^the  Devil ; 
for  "  devil  "  signifies  "  accuser.'* 

Thus  Lucifer  made  himself  Satan  and  Devil,  ad- 
versary and  accuser  of  the  Most  High  God. 


88    Communications  From  Fallen  Angels 

God  made  him  perfect  and  clean.  He  made 
himself  Satan. 

God  gave  him  liberty,  glory  and  power.  He 
made  himself  the  Devil. 

This  answers  the  question:  "  Why  did  God  make 
the  Devil?" 

He  never  made  one. 

He  became  one  by  his  own  act. 

He  rebelled  against  God. 

The  cherubim  associated  with  him  took  sides 
with  him  and  became  rebels  like  himself. 

God  smote  him  and  his  angels. 

He  smote  the  earth  which  had  been  the  scene  of 
this  rebellion. 

The  earth  fell  into  a  state  of  sheer  chaos. 

Jarred  from  its  original  orbit  about  the  sun  it 
floated  in  space  a  black,  drowned,  sunless,  silent 
thing  like  a  funeral  convoy. 

No  record  is  given  of  how  long  this  chaos  lasted. 

Six  thousand  years  ago  God  withdrew  it  from 
its  chaotic  state,  lifted  it  back  into  its  full  orbit, 
caused  the  sun  to  shine  again  through  the  encom- 
passing darkness  and  reformed  it  as  the  earth  of 
to-day. 

He  created  man  to  take  the  place  of  Satan  as  its 
prince,  its  Lord  and  God. 

Satan  and  his  angels  were  banished  to  "outer 
darkness." 

"  The  outer  darkness  "  of  Scripture  is  the  zone 
outside  of  the  earth's  atmosphere,  between  it  and 


Commtinications  From  Fallen  Angels    39 

the  atmospheric  enclosures  of  the  other  planets  in 
the  starry  universe. 

Satan  was  given  permission  to  ascend  from  time 
to  time  to  the  third  heaven  into  the  presence  of  the 
Lord  as  the  accuser  of  the  Lord's  people  when  they 
should  fall  by  the  way  and  fail  to  make  confession 
of  their  faults. 

He  was  given  full  liberty  to  range  the  earth. 

Man  was  no  sooner  created  than  he  tempted 
him  with  the  temptation  that  had  caused  his  own 
fall. 

He  suggested  to  him  that  he  had  all  the  equip- 
ment necessary  to  rule  the  world  without  God. 

He  could  create  a  race  in  his  own  image  and  fill 
the  world. 

He  did  not  need  to  be  in  leading  strings  to  the 
Almighty.  He  had  creative  life  power  and  should 
use  it. 

The  office  and  powers  of  rulership  that  God  had 
given  to  man  were,  however,  altogether  proba- 
tionary. The  office  could  be  kept  and  the  powers 
exercised  only  by  an  absolute  dependency  of  faith 
in  and  upon  God. 

In  proportion  as  he  would  walk  by  faith  God 
would  make  him  the  channel  of  His  own  powers, 
the  instrument  and  revelation  of  Himself;  he 
should  be  His  incarnation.  He  was  already  His 
constitutional  image  in  that  he  was  a  threefold 
being,  spirit,  soul  and  body.  It  was  his  privilege 
to  be  His  moral  and  spiritual  image,  reflecting  His 


40    Communications  From  Fallen  Ansels 


6' 


character  of  holiness  and  righteousness.  He  could 
be,  if  he  were  willing  to  make  the  will  of  God 
supreme  in  his  life,  the  governmental  image  of 
God,  representing  Him  in  His  supreme  authority, 
standing  for  Him  so  that  He  should  be  seen  and 
known  in  man.  It  was  thus  God's  purpose  to  make 
man  His  visibility. 

But  he  listened  to  the  Devil's  lie  rather  than  to 
God's  truth.  He  set  up  his  own  will  instead  of  the 
will  of  God. 

The  result  was  immediate  and  terrific.  His 
spirit  connection  with  God  was  broken.  He  slipped 
down  into  and  under  the  control  of  the  material 
and  animal  side  of  his  life.  He  became  the  en- 
thronement of  Satan  and  not  God. 

This  was  his  fall. 

Instead  of  becoming  the  enthronement  of  the 
God  of  the  universe,  he  became  the  enthronement 
of  the  rebel  of  the  universe. 

He  was  not  created  to  be  an  animal  working  with 
tools;  but,  as  the  enthronement  of  God  he  should 
have  spoken  and  it  would  have  been  done;  he 
should  have  commanded  and  it  would  have  stood 
fast. 

Since  the  hour  of  his  fall  he  has  been  trying  to 
get  back  to  his  place  as  the  full  God  of  the  earth. 

He  has  been  protesting  against  his  limitations. 

Every  invention  he  has  made  is  the  expression 
of  that  protest. 

These  inventions,  in  spite  of  himself,  instead  of 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    41 

proclaiming  his  greatness  announce  his  limitation 
and  Httlencss. 

Does  he  invent  a  telescope,  it  is  because  his  eye- 
sight falls  short.  Does  he  invent  a  telephone,  it  is 
because  his  hearing  is  limited.  Does  he  congratu- 
late himself  that  he  can  speed  almost  with  the 
swiftness  of  the  wind  on  his  tracks  of  steel,  it  is 
witness  that  his  powers  of  locomotion  are  limited. 
Gather  up  all  his  inventions  and  in  every  direction 
and  they  shall  be  seen  to  be  the  crutches  with  which 
he  who  might  have  been  as  a  god  is  trying  to  limp 
his  way  upward  to  the  throne  of  supreme  power 
he  feels  in  his  inmost  soul  belongs  of  right  to 
him. 

His  very  greatness  in  these  matters,  in  the  mak- 
ing of  these  crutches,  bear  witness  of  his  fearful 
lameness,  of  his  terrible  fall. 

In  the  original  charter  God  gave  him  dominion 
and  rule  over  the  earth  and  placed  "  all  things  un- 
der his  feet." 

Instead  of  that,  he  is  to-day  under  the  feet  of 
all  things. 

All  his  science,  his  increase  in  knowledge  and 
power  are  the  mad  efforts  to  turn  the  Devil's  lie, 
"  ye  shall  be  as  gods,"  into  verified  and  effective 
truth. 

By  his  stroke  against  man  the  Devil  (still  retain- 
ing his  title  as  "  prince  of  this  world,  acknowl- 
edged as  such  by  the  Son  of  God  and  declared  by 
Paul  to  be  the  god  of  this  world)  has  succeeded 


42    Comniunications  From  Fallen  Angels 

in  keeping  man  as  man  and  man's  world  in  his 
power  and  is  moving  steadily  forward  to  that  hour 
when  in  imitation  of  God  he  shall  incarnate  him- 
self in  the  man  of  sin,  the  son  of  perdition,  fool 
the  world  with  a  false  Christ,  an  imitation  Christ, 
and  for  a  brief  period  set  up  that  kingdom,  that 
super  state  whose  pretentious  peace  and  prosperity 
shall  deceive  the  sons  of  men ;  and  were  it  not  for 
the  power  of  God  over  all,  for  that  God  who  make^ 
the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  Him  and  the  remainder 
restrains,  should  deceive  the  very  elect. 

Although  Satan  has  been  given  the  range  of  the 
earth,  he  has  never  descended  into  hades.  He  will 
not  enter  it  till  the  Second  Coming  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  when  he  will  be  incarcerated  there 
during  the  thousand  years,  during  the  millennial 
reign  of  the  Son  of  God. 

Satan's  rebel  angels  were  shut  out  from  the 
heaven  of  heavens.  They  were  not  sent  down  Into 
hades,  but  with  their  head  and  master  given  full 
liberty  in  the  earth. 

They  are  called — "  wandering  spirits." 

They  are  "  lying  "  and  "  wicked  "  spirits. 

They  are  the  rulers  of  the  world's  darkness. 

They  are  the  kosmokratores,  the  "  cosmic 
powers." 

They  are  behind  the  governments  of  the  world, 
back  of  the  thrones  of  kings,  the  chairs  of  presi- 
dents and  governors,  in  the  cabinets  of  the  nations, 
mixing  and  muddling  the  politics  of  the  world,  in- 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    43 

spiring  its  wars,  its  conflicts,  lawlessnesses  and 
confusion. 

As  it  is  written: 

"We  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but 
against  principalities,  against  powers,  against  the 
rulers,  the  potentates,  the  cosmic  powers  of  this 
darkness,  against  wicked  spirits  in  the  heavens." 

They  have  great  knowledge  and  mighty  powers. 

They  can  make  themselves  visible  and  invisible. 
They  can  materialize  and  dematerialize  themselves. 

They  can  come  and  go  as  the  winds  come  and  go. 

They  can  enter  the  home. 

They  can  see  and  yet  remain  unseen. 

For  this  reason  women  are  commanded  to  keep 
covered,  that  is  to  keep  the  head  covered,  with  a 
vail. 

As  it  is  written: 

"  For  this  cause  (on  account  of  her  constitu- 
tional relation  to  man)  ought  the  woman  to  have 
a  vail  on  her  head  because  of  the  angels." 

They  are  full  of  impish  curiosity. 

They  listen,  they  hear. 

They  can  hear  the  secrets  of  a  family;  and  for 
this  reason  can,  through  mediums,  report  things 
known  only  to  the  individuals  themselves ;  or,  bring 
news  known  to  others  concerning  them  and  in  a 
measure  predict  certain  events. 

Many  things  occurring  in  mediumlstic  spheres 
which  seem  entirely  supernatural  and  evidential 
have  been  exposed  as  tricks  of  legerdemain,  as 


44>    Communications  From  Fallen  Angels 

wholly  fraudulent,  and  practised  with  absolute  in- 
tent to  deceive,  as  in  the  case  of  Howe  caught  by 
Browning  and  hated  by  him  because  of  it,  and  the 
escapades  of  Euspasia  Palladino;  to  say  nothing  of 
the  exposures  of  the  Fox  sisters  and  others. 

But  the  powers  exhibited  by  Home  when,  as  re- 
ported by  three  of  the  most  honourable,  intelligent 
and  responsible  persons  in  the  world,  he  sailed 
through  an  open  window  out  of  one  room  seventy 
feet  above  the  ground,  through  another  open  win- 
dow several  feet  away  at  the  same  height  into  an- 
other room,  his  levitation  so  that  he  was  seen  ap- 
parently raised  up  toward  the  ceiling  in  a  corner 
of  the  room,  the  movement  of  tables,  playing  of 
musical  instruments  without  hands,  rappings  and 
automatic  spellings,  materializations,  spirit  photo- 
graphs, personal  identities  of  the  dead,  the  sound 
of  their  voices  and  characteristic  mannerisms  of 
speech,  mediumistic  powers  of  such  people  as  Mrs. 
Piper,  Mrs.  Thompson  and  others,  these  mani- 
festations of  the  supernatural,  the  occult,  are  ac- 
counted for  by  wandering  spirits  who  have  the 
power  to  produce  all  such  results. 

They  are  properly  called  "  lying  "  spirits. 

Their  delight  is  to  lie  and  their  business  is  to 
deceive. 

A  dramatic  demonstration  of  their  ability  to  lie 
and  deceive  is  set  forth  in  the  First  Book  of  Kings, 
in  the  twenty-second  chapter. 

Ahab,  king  of  Israel,  and  Jehoshaphat,  king  of 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    45 

Judah,  entered  into  an  alliance  to  make  war  against 
the  Syrians  and  to  recover  from  them  the  posses- 
sion of  Ramoth-Gilead. 

Ahab  gathered  his  four  hundred  prophets  and  in- 
quired of  them  what  would  be  the  outcome  of  such 
a  war. 

They  all  with  one  accord  bade  him  go  up,  for  the 
Lord  should  deliver  the  battle  into  his  hands. 

Jehoshaphat  was  not  fully  satisfied.  He  inquired 
whether  there  was  not  another  prophet  of  the  Lord 
beside  these. 

Ahab  answered  there  was  such  an  one,  Micaiah, 
son  of  Imlah,  but  he  hated  him  because  he  always 
prophesied  evil  against  him  and  not  good.  He 
always  found  him  straight  across  his  plans  and 
purposes,  seeming  by  his  prognostications  and 
warnings  to  wish  to  thwart  him. 

On  the  insistence  of  Jehoshaphat  Ahab  called 
for  Micaiah. 

The  kings  put  on  their  robes  of  state,  seated 
themselves  on  their  thrones  and  waited. 

The  prophets  came  and  stood  expectantly  be- 
fore them. 

One  of  them,  Zedekiah,  took  horns  of  iron  and, 
imitating  a  rush,  said  that  in  just  such  a  manner 
and  as  easily  would  the  king  of  Israel  be  able  to  go 
against  the  Syrians  and  push  them  off  the  land. 

The  prophets  to  a  man  applauded  this  utterance 
and  agreed  that  victory  would  perch  upon  the  ban- 
ners of  the  kings. 


46    Communications  From  Fallen  Angels 

The  messenger  who  went  to  call  Micaiah  coun- 
selled him  that  he  should  say  what  all  the  other 
prophets  had  said,  bade  him  speak  softly  and  bring 
a  smooth  and  easy  message  to  the  king. 

But  Micaiah  was  of  altogether  different  stuff 
from  that. 

He  was  a  prophet  of  the  Lord  and  not  man. 
He  was  called  to  speak  the  Word  of  God  whether 
men  should  hear  or  forbear ;  whether  it  made  them 
his  friends  or  his  foes. 

Therefore  he  said: 

"As  the  Lord  liveth,  what  the  Lord  saith  unto 
me,  that  I  will  speak." 

When  he  came  in  Ahab  asked  him  should  he  go 
up  to  battle  at  Ramoth-Gilead. 

With  accent  of  keenest  irony  in  each  word 
Micaiah  said  what  the  other  prophets  had  said, 
bade  him  go  up  and  prosper;  for,  evidently,  the 
Lord  intended  to  give  him  the  victory,  Ramoth- 
Gilead  should  certainly  be  his.  Had  not  the  four 
hundred  prophets  of  the  Lord  spoken  in  unanimity? 
Could  there  be  any  doubt  about  it  ? 

Ahab  realized  Micaiah  was  speaking  satiric- 
ally and  that  his  message  was  not  from  the  Lord. 
He  turned  upon  him  therefore  and  abjured  him  to 
speak  the  truth  and  tell  the  message  as  he  had 
received  it  from  the  Lord  and  keep  nothing 
back. 

Thus  abjured,  Micaiah  said  he  saw  all  Israel 
scattered  on  the  hills  as  sheep  that  had  no  shep- 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    47 

herd,  and  the  Lord  had  said  these  had  no  master, 
let  them  return  every  man  to  his  house,  think  of 
peace  and  not  war.  In  anger  and  bitterness  Ahab 
turned  to  Jehoshaphat  and  said  to  him: 

"  Did  not  I  tell  thee  that  he  would  prophesy  no 
good  concerning  me,  but  evil  ?  " 

Then  Micaiah  lifted  up  his  voice  and  in  accents 
of  solemn  authority  said: 

"  I  saw  the  Lord  sitting  on  his  throne,  and  all 
the  host  of  heaven  standing  by  him  on  his  right 
hand  and  on  his  left. 

"And  the  Lord  said,  who  shall  persuade  (de- 
ceive) Ahab  that  he  may  go  up  and  fall  at  Ramoth- 
Gilead  ?  And  one  said  on  this  manner,  and  another 
said  on  that  manner. 

"And  there  came  forth  a  spirit  and  stood 
btfore  the  Lord,  and  said,  I  will  persuade 
him. 

"And  the  Lord  said  unto  him,  Wherewith  ? 

"And  he  said,  I  will  go  forth,  and  I  will  be  a 
lying  spirit  in  the  mouth  of  all  his  prophets. 

"And  he  said,  Thou  shalt  persuade  him,  and  pre- 
vail also:  go  forth  and  do  so." 

"  Now  therefore  (saith  Micaiah)  behold,  the 
Lord  hath  put  a  lying  spirit  In  the  mouth  of  all 
thy  prophets,  and  the  Lord  hath  spoken  evil  con- 
cerning thee." 

Then  Zedeklah,  the  prophet  who  had  put  on 
horns  and  showed  the  king  how  he  was  going  to 
win  the  victory,  went  up  to  Micaiah,  smote  him  in 


48    Communications  From  Fallen  Angek 

the  face  and  asked  him  to  tell  which  way  the  spirit 
had  gone  from  him  to  Micaiah. 

The  king  ordered  Micaiah  to  be  sent  to  prison 
and  fed  on  bread  and  water  till  he  should  return 
victorious  from  the  battle. 

He  and  Jehoshaphat  went  up  to  Ramoth-Gilead 
and  were  sorely;  defeated.  Jehoshaphat  barely 
escaped  with  his  life,  Ahab  was  wounded  and 
died. 

Micaiah  had  told  the  truth. 

A  lying,  wandering  spirit  had  filled  the  mouths 
of  all  Ahab's  prophets  and  under  this  lying  in- 
spiration they  had  given  a  false  message  to  the 
king. 

Ahab  had  been  warned  of  God  concerning  his 
wickedness.  He  had  warned  him  by  the  mouth 
of  Elijah  and  told  him  of  the  evil  coming  upon 
his  house. 

He  turned  a  deaf  ear,  was  willing  to  listen  only 
to  that  which  could  justify  him  in  his  unlimited 
wilfulness  and  went  straight  on  in  his  iniquity  as 
an  ox  to  the  slaughter. 

When  men  will  not  take  the  warning  and  the  re- 
straint of  God  then  the  Lord  gives  them  up  to  their 
own  way. 

Nothing  is  more  pathetic  and  gracious  than  the 
attitude  of  the  Lord  to  the  waywardness  of  Israel ; 
but,  finally,  He  gives  utterance  to  the  terrible 
words: 

"  Ephraim  is  joined  to  idols:  let  him  alone." 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    49 

God  uses  the  wickedness  of  the  wicked  as  He 
uses  the  righteousness  of  the  righteous. 

He  makes  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  Him,  the 
remainder  He  restrains.  He  uses  Satan  in  spite  of 
himself  as  the  rod  of  His  anger  and  the  subtihy  of 
wandering  spirits  to  punish  those  who  turn  their 
back  upon  His  warning. 

It  is  written: 

"He  that  seeketh  mischief,  it  shall  come  unto 
him." 

These  wandering  spirits  are  waiting  for  the 
slightest  suggestion  and  are  ready  to  respond ;  they 
are  on  the  qui  vive  to  deceive. 

They  can  personate  the  dead. 

They  can  to  a  great  degree  counterfeit  the 
identity  of  those  who  have  passed  into  the  unseen 
world.  They  cannot  do  it  perfectly  and  therefore 
it  is  necessary  to  simulate.  This  accounts  for  the 
blunders  and  the  utter  silliness  at  times  of  the 
messages  that  come  through  the  mediums,  their 
contradictorlness  and  the  broken  links,  the  Inco- 
herencles ;  but  this  leads  the  befooled  sitters  in  the 
seance  to  suggest  unconsciously  the  answers  they 
wish  to  receive,  sometimes  in  the  very  questions 
they  put  to  the  mediums,  more  often  in  the  sur- 
render of  the  mind  to  the  Ingaze  of  the  spirits  who 
can  thus  read  the  very  answer  the  listener  is  wait- 
ing to  receive. 

Let  no  mistake  be  made. 

The  mediums  do  speak  under  the  influence  and 


50    Communications  From  Fallen  Angels 

powers  of  beings  outside  of  themselves.  It  is  all 
terribly  true. 

But  let  no  further  mistake  be  made ! 

It  is  the  wandering  spirit  or  spirits  who  speak 
through  them. 

Let  no  mistake  be  made,  for  it  will,  sooner  or 
later,  be  costly;  these  wandering  spirits,  and  these 
only,  speak  out  of  the  unseen  world  and  pretend 
to  convey  the  message  of  the  other  side. 

They  are  very  distinct  in  their  operation  from 
demons. 

The  demons  give  no  message,  they  simply  come 
to  incarnate  themselves  in  the  living;  they  are 
silent  as  may  be  possible  about  themselves.  They 
seek  to  identify  themselves  with  the  living  per- 
sonality, subdue  it  and  use  it. 

The  wandering  spirits  do  not  enter  in,  possess, 
and  make  the  body  a  habitation,  they  "  control " 
the  faculties  of  the  medium  as  when  a  hypnotizer 
is  able  to  make  his  will  take  the  place  of  the  will 
of  the  individual  who  has  surrendered  to  him.  In 
every  case  where  the  medium  is  of  any  avail  and 
shows  any  degree  of  power  he  or  she  must  first  put 
himself  or  herself  into  a  passive  state,  surrender 
themselves  and  wait  for  this  control,  make  no  ef- 
fort in  any  direction  to  resist  it.  The  medium  as 
far  as  possible  must  give  up  every  element  of  will 
or  personality. 

The  messages  from  the  dead  are  the  messages 
of  these  wandering  spirits  more  or  less  tinged  with 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    51 

the  mentality  of  the  medium.  This  reveals  the 
reason  why  some  of  the  messages  are  more  in- 
tellectual than  others  and  why  some  are  indescrib- 
able in  their  folly. 

This  must  be  so;  otherwise  as  soon  as  an  or- 
dinarily intelligent  person  dies  and  enters  the  other 
realm  he  or  she  becomes  a  mental  degenerate  or 
wilfully  guilty  of  farcical,  coarse,  clownish  utter- 
ances that  would  have  made  them  ashamed  in  their 
earthly  life. 

No  greater  demonstration  of  this  can  be  had 
than  in  the  book  now  being  read  by  thousands 
everywhere,  the  book,  "  Raymond,"  given  to  the 
public  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge. 

Personally,  the  author  of  that  book  has  all  my 
most  sincere  and  respectful  sympathy. 

He  is  a  father,  a  bereaved  father,  reaching  out 
for  contact  with  his  beloved  son — a  son  slain  while 
fighting  on  the  fields  of  France.  Every  page  of 
the  book  shows  consciously  or  unconsciously  his 
heartache,  his  desire  to  reach  his  boy,  hear  him 
speak  in  the  old  familiar  speech  and  say,  "  Hello, 
Father." . 

I  can  sympathize  with  him. 

I  do  not  know  any  one  who  can  more  thoroughly, 
more  fully  and  deeply  sympathize. 

I  am  a  father.  I  have  lost  an  only  son  who 
was  an  only  child.  My  mourning  for  him  has  been 
what  Scripture  describes  it  to  be,  as  "when  one 
moumeth  for  an  only  son,"  putting  that  sorrow 


52    Communications  From  Fallen  Angels 

forward  as  of  the  most  intense,  the  one  supreme 
degree  of  sorrow. 

My  heart  is  buried  in  his  grave.  The  stars  have 
paled  from  the  night,  the  sun  has  ceased  to  shine 
as  of  yore.  His  going  has  drawn  a  horizon  over 
every  personal  plan,  and  though  I  should  live  a 
hundred  years  on  earth  it  would  open  no  vista  of 
glories  to  me ;  and  were  it  not  that  I  have  the  sure, 
infallible  Word  of  God,  the  light  that  never  fails, 
the  clear  crystal  message  that  tells  me  where  he  is, 
his  "  far  better  "  state,  the  imminence  of  the  Lord's 
return  with  him  and  the  guaranty  from  God  Him- 
self that  sooner  or  later  I  shall  see  him  and  we 
shall  study  the  wonder  of  God's  universe  together, 
I  would  not  have  energy  to  live  through  the 
fading  hours  of  shortest  time  and  would  without 
effort  to  retain  them  let  the  best  gifts  the  world 
could  offer  me  fall  indifferently  from  my  hand. 

And  because  of  this  intensity  surely  no  man  on 
earth  would  be  more  predisposed  than  I  to  thrust 
myself  outward  and  break,  if  it  could  be,  the  parti- 
tion thick  or  thin  between  this  world  and  the  next 
and  hear  my  son  speak  to  me  again  in  the  voice  that 
would  be  to  me  better  than  the  world's  best  music. 

And  yet  with  all  this  feeling  of  sympathy  with 
the  father  of  "  Raymond  "  I  am  under  bonds  as 
one  put  in  trust  with  the  truth  of  God  to  say  that 
this  book  is  the  most  pitiful,  pathetic  folly  ever 
given  to  the  world. 

We  are  told  of  the  moving  of  tables. 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    53 

When  the  hands  are  on  a  table  it  seems  like  a 
living  thing.  It  will  move  in  different  directions 
in  the  room.  Now^  tow^ard  the  piano,  then  toward 
the  bookcase  or  a  sewing  table.  When  it  wants  a 
scrap  book  opened  it  will  almost  climb  where  it  is 
and  then  pound  so  noisily  and  persistently  that  it 
can  be  quieted  only  by  opening  the  book.  When 
it  is  full  of  sympathy  it  will  rub  itself  softly  and 
gently  and  with  an  intelligent  pressure  against  the 
knee  of  the  sitter. 

Raymond  "  came  through  "  different  mediums 
and  with  different  "  controls." 

He  speaks  for  himself.  He  speaks  as  Raymond. 
There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  on  the  part  of  the 
sitters  that  it  is  Raymond. 

He  gives  a  full  description  of  conditions  and 
circumstances  on  the  "  other  side." 

Those  who  "  go  over  "  are  taken  In  hand  by 
"  spirit  doctors  "  who  build  them  a  body  suited  to 
the  new  sphere. 

It  takes  some  longer  than  others  to  get  a  com- 
plete body. 

Those  who  are  cremated  have  considerable  diffi- 
culty In  getting  entirely  free  from  the  influence  or 
holding  power  of  the  old  body.  It  seems  more 
difficult  to  deliver  the  soul  from  the  ashes  of  a 
cremated  body  than  when  it  has  been  blown  to 
pieces. 

The  doctors  are  very  thorough  so  that  those  who 
have  lost  any  member  will  have  it  restored. 


54    Communications  From  Fallen  Angels 

Raymond  has  a  new  tooth  and  is  rather  proud 
of  it. 

He  is  living  very  comfortably. 

He  is  living  in  a  brick  house. 

The  bricks  are  made  up  there,  as  also  the  things 
necessary  to  the  construction  of  houses  and  streets. 

The  bricks  and  most  other  material  used  in  the 
upper  country  are  manufactured  out  of  the  ef- 
fluvia, the  gas  or  atoms  from  time  to  time  ascend- 
ing from  the  earth's  surface. 

It  rains  over  there. 

The  rain  is  just  as  real  as  it  is  here. 

It  is  just  as  real  because  it  makes  mud. 

This  mud  is  just  as  real  as  the  rain,  for  it  is 
possible  to  sink  into  it  and  when  it  touches  the 
clothes  it  soils  them. 

They  also  have  manure. 

Why  it  should  be  there  and  what  the  source  of 
it  may  be  Raymond  does  not  state ;  but  this  is  evi- 
dently just  as  true  as  are  all  the  otlier  matters  he 
describes. 

Raymond  now  has  a  white  robe  such  as  people 
wear  in  hot  countries. 

When  he  first  went  over  he  had  another  suit. 

This  suit  was  manufactured  out  of  the  gas  or 
effluvia  ascending  from  old  and  rotten  worsted 
stuff  on  this  side. 

All  wool  goods  that  get  rotten  here  below,  or  just 
wool  itself  that  gets  old  and  rotten  sends  up  a 
strong  exhalation,  and  this  exhalation  of  rotten 


Coniinunications  From  Fallen  Angels    55 

wool  produces  the  very  best  Scotch  or  Eng- 
lish tweed  suits  as  soon  as  it  reaches  the  other 
side. 

The  smell  of  rotten  and  intensely  putrefying 
things  so  disagreeable  to  us  and  which  all  sanitary 
organizations  seek  to  dissipate  are  of  enormous 
advantage  in  the  upper  sphere  where  Raymond  is 
at  present  dwelling. 

By  these  smells  as  they  ascend  from  the  earth 
the  manufacturers  above  are  able  to  tell  what 
were  the  original  forms  and  constructions  and  re- 
produce them;  in  other  words,  these  smells  are 
what  plans  and  drawings  of  an  architect  are  to 
builders. 

Raymond  intimates  that  it  is  necessary  in  the 
"  over  there  "  to  have  a  good  nose  and  a  keen 
faculty  of  smell. 

As  soon  as  one  goes  over  he  finds  himself  more 
or  less  full  of  the  appetites  and  desires  he  had  in 
the  earth  sphere. 

These  appetites  and  desires  along  certain  lines 
can  be  gratified  on  mentioning  them  or  making  ap- 
plication for  the  desired  thing. 

Those  who  are  accustomed  to  the  joy  of  smok- 
ing can  have  cigars. 

There  is  no  law  of  prohibition  in  force  in  that 
country  and  those  who  desire  a  brandy  or  whiskey 
soda  may  have  one. 

Flowers  that  fade  on  earth  will  have  a  resur- 
rection.    Because  of  the  ascension  of  their  aroma. 


56    Communications  From  Fallen  Angels 

their  fragrant  odours,  the  upper  expert  constructors 
can  reproduce  them. 

Indeed,  it  would  seem  from  Raymond's  testi- 
mony there  is  no  limit  to  the  raw  material  needed, 
in  any  direction. 

Domestic  animals  are  to  be  found  there. 

Raymond  says  they  have  dogs  and  cats. 

He  is  particularly  interested  in  a  "  doggie  "  that 
has  such  a  good  tail.  It  is  not  a  **  stumpy  **  tail, 
but  one  having  plenty  of  hair  on  it. 

Sex  is  retained  on  the  other  side. 

The  man  who  goes  over  remains  a  man  or  is 
built  up  as  a  man. 

The  woman  who  goes  over  remains  a  woman. 

They  love  each  other  with  the  same  sincere  love 
with  which  they  love  each  other  here. 

Husbands  and  wives  do  not  necessarily  find  each 
other  or  come  together  again. 

Those  who  have  loved  each  other,  who  have  an 
affinity  for  each  other  will  come  together  whether 
they  have  been  husband  and  wife  or  not.  So  far 
Raymond  has  seen  no  children  born  of  this  love. 

Raymond  himself  does  not  care  to  eat,  but  some 
who  go  over  have  an  appetite  for  it  and  there  is 
something  given  to  them  which  looks  like  meat. 

There  are  laboratories  in  which  everything  used 
on  earth  can  be  reduplicated.  This  reduplication 
is  accomplished,  as  already  stated,  by  the  use  of 
the  atoms  of  one  sort  or  another  ascending  from 
the  earth. 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    57 


o' 


Raymond  is  particularly  anxious  when  he  tells 
his  father  about  anything  on  the  other  side  that  he 
will  not  feel  he  is  "  sticking  "  him  about  it,  but 
telling  the  absolute  truth,  and  telling  it  soberly. 

The  climate  in  some  respects  is  like  our  own. 

There  are  certain  parts  of  the  day  when  he  feels 
chilly,  and  specially  since  he  has  changed  his 
worsted  suit  for  the  lighter  garment. 

Many  of  those  who  go  over  will  not  believe  they 
are  dead  for  a  long  while.  It  takes  a  long  while 
and  much  patience  with  them  before  they  will  be- 
lieve it. 

Everybody,  however,  sooner  or  later,  is  in  good 
form ;  for  everybody  becomes  "  jolly." 

Raymond  himself  is  full  of  his  "  jokes." 

"  Feda  "  the  "  control  "  represents  him  as  roll- 
ing over  convulsed  with  laughter. 

Some  of  the  rough  characters  who  leave  this 
earth  sphere  are  taken,  not  to  hell,  for  there  is  no 
hell,  but  to  a  sort  of  reformatory,  a  kind  of  an 
upper  purgatory,  where  they  are  treated  and  come 
forth  at  last  completely  cured. 

There  are  halls  of  learning,  in  which  lectures  in 
regular  courses  are  given. 

In  these  courses  the  student  is  taught  to  prepare 
himself  for  the  higher  spheres. 

Raymond  has  been  in  one  of  these  spheres. 

There  he  saw  a  beautiful  temple.  It  seemed  to 
be  covered  with  alabaster.  It  had  stained  glass 
windows.    There  were  pews  as  in  a  church.    It 


58    Communications  From  Fallen  Ansrels 


o* 


had  broad  aisles  and  people  walked  up  and  down 
in  them  seeking  to  put  themselves  in  the  different 
rays  that  came  from  the  stained  glass  windows, 
the  different  colours  signifying  different  states  and 
conditions  and  producing  them,  a  sort  of  violet 
ray  operation. 

There  are  towns  and  streets  over  there. 

Raymond  has  been  back  to  this  side.  No  one 
has  ever  seen  him,  but  he  has  seen  others.  He  can 
see  and  distinguish  people  better  at  night  when 
they  are  in  bed ;  the  quiet  of  the  time  and  the  calm- 
ness of  the  atmosphere  facilitates  the  seeing  of 
them. 

The  language  of  earth  is  spoken  freely  and  the 
vernacular  sounds  familiar.  Raymond  says,  "  by 
Jove,"  as  easily  as  he  said  it  no  doubt  when  here 
below. 

I  have  taken  these  statements  from  the  book  at 
random. 

Their  incoherencies  or  lack  of  connection  are  not 
mine.     They  are  as  found. 

Never  since  the  art  of  printing  was  discovered 
and  the  thoughts  of  men  placed  beneath  the  gaze 
of  readers  was  ever  so  pretentious  a  book  with  so 
compelling  a  theme  as  the  state  of  the  dead  filled 
with  such  sheer  nonsense,  childish  triviality,  idiotic 
silliness,  the  brutality  of  excuseless  vulgarity  and 
the  debauchery  of  clownish  coarseness. 

For  this  mass  of  gibbering  foolery,  evidential 
worthlessness  and  complete  mental  breakdown  we 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    59 

are  asked  to  give  up  the  revelation  and  concept  of 
the  hereafter  which  the  Bible  brings  to  us. 

Compare,  I  pray  you,  the  Golden  City,  the  New 
Jerusalem,  the  home  of  those  who  die  in  the  faith 
of  Christ,  that  city  with  its  jewelled  foundations, 
its  jasper  walls,  its  gates  of  pearl,  its  palaces  and 
streets  of  gold,  its  river  of  life,  its  tree  of  life  with 
its  fruit  and  leaves  for  the  healing  of  the  nations, 
its  shadowless  light  and  the  face  of  Him  who  cre- 
ated heaven  and  earth ;  who  created  His  own  new, 
spotless  and  sinless  humanity;  who  offered  it  as  a 
sacrifice  for  sinful  men;  who  rose  from  the  dead 
and  lined  the  grave  with  the  glory  of  His  immor- 
tality; who  dwells  in  that  city  as  Redeemer, 
Saviour  and  spiritual  life  giver;  compare  that  city 
and  its  glories  with  Raymond's  brick  house,  the 
rain,  the  mud  and  the  unspeakable  manure. 

Compare  the  Heaven  of  God's  saints  with  its 
tall  angels,  with  the  harpers  harping  with  their 
harps,  with  the  seraphim  singing  their  thrice  holy 
song,  "  holy,  holy,  holy.  Lord  God  Almighty ; " 
that  Heaven  where  all  is  righteousness,  intensity  of 
spotless  purity,  and  where  the  fashion  is  holiness, 
with  the  heaven  of  spiritism,  its  dogs,  cats,  its 
putrefying  smells,  its  brandy  sodas,  cigars  and 
meat. 

Compare  the  robe  given  to  the  saint  who  enters 
the  upper  city,  the  robe  woven  on  the  looms  of 
eternal  light,  in  the  scintillating  white  of  the  essen- 
tial holiness  of  God,  with  the  English  tweed  and 


60    Communications  From  Fallen  Angels 

worsted  suits  manufactured  out  of  the  effluvia,  gas 
or  atoms  ascending  from  the  rotting  and  putrefy- 
ing things  of  earth. 

Compare  the  Bible  with  its  rarest  rhetoric,  its 
exalted  prose,  its  sublime  poetic  expression,  its 
pellucid  narrative,  its  linked  logic,  its  supernatural 
reserve,  in  which  from  one  end  to  another  you  can 
find  neither  a  silly  line,  nor  an  idle  phrase,  the  sug- 
gestion of  a  joke,  the  slightest  pleasantry;  this 
Book  that  rebukes  sin  till  its  wrath  flames  down 
like  an  unquenchable  fire  into  the  very  intents  and 
purposes  of  the  heart,  withering  and  laying  bare 
every  impulse  that  is  evil;  this  Bible  full  of  self- 
evident  and  calm  truthfulness,  a  dignity  that  never 
breaks  down,  a  definition  and  determining  of  right 
that  never  compromises;  this  Book  that  is  a  tele- 
scope to  look  into  eternity  past  and  eternity  to 
come ;  a  microscope  that  gives  microscopic  revela- 
tion of  the  smallest  details  of  human  thought  and 
the  handiwork  of  God;  the  Book  whose  verifica- 
tion is  written  in  fulfilled  and  fulfilling  prophecy, 
the  history  of  nations,  the  rise  and  fall  of  kings  and 
dynasties,  cities,  towns  and  individuals,  and  to  so 
small  a  detail  as  the  fall  of  a  wall ;  the  Book  that 
is  the  bread  of  life  for  the  dying,  the  water  of  life 
for  the  spiritually  thirsty,  the  wine  of  life,  the  spice 
of  life,  milk  of  the  simpHcity  of  truth  for  the 
babes  in  Christ  and  the  strong  meat  of  doctrine  for 
those  of  advanced  age,  of  mature  thought  and  full 
experience  in  the  exercise  of  the  Spirit;  the  Book 


Coiniiiunications  From  Fallen  Aiigels    61 

that  is  simple  enough  for  a  child  to  read  and  yet 
so  profound,  so  mentally  as  well  as  spiritually 
stimulating,  so  abysmal  in  its  descent  into  essence 
and  causation  and  eternal  plan  and  purpose  that 
the  princes  and  kings  in  the  realm  of  intellect  and 
domain  of  thought  have  been  for  ages  digging  into 
its  collocations,  its  single  words,  as  into  mines  from 
whose  limitless  deposits  the  wealth  of  fresh  truth 
is  continually  brought  forth  to  the  wonder  and  de- 
light of  the  soul ;  this  Book  that  is  the  alone  nexus 
with  the  personality  of  God,  and  through  which 
alone  the  Spirit  can  bring  the  consciousness  of  God 
to  the  soul;  this  Book  that  has  turned  men  from 
mere  animals  with  heads  lowered  to  the  dust,  into 
sweet  and  strengthful  sons  of  God  with  uplifted 
faces  bathed  in  and  made  radiant  with  the  light 
reflected  by  it  from  the  throne  of  God;  compare 
this  Bible  and  its  message,  I  bid  you,  with  the  pitiful 
stuff  set  forth  in  "  Raymond,"  and  its  kindred  in 
the  literature  of  Spiritism  as  a  revelation  of  the 
unseen  world,  and  you  may  well  believe  that  it  is 
as  far  above  that  literature  as  the  mountain  peaks 
of  the  Himalayas  are  above  the  grains  of  sand  that 
lie  at  their  base,  as  an  angel  above  a  crawling 
worm ;  and  that  this  same  literature  of  Spiritism  in 
its  best  edition  and  finest  form  is  beyond  all  ques- 
tion the  work  of  lunatics  or  lying,  seducing,  wan- 
dering spirits  and  the  inspiration  of  him  of  whom 
it  is  written  that  he  is  that  "  old  serpent,  called  the 
Devil,  and  Satan." 


62    Coniiiiunications  From  Fallen  Aiigels 

For  this  spiritistic  literature  that  makes  one  think 
as  he  reads  it  of  cheap  vaudeville  or  impish  pranks 
and  hectoring  tricks ;  for  this  rubbish  of  the  dump 
heap  of  all  discarded  illusions  of  ancient  days,  with 
its  naive  description  of  a  heaven  of  mud,  manure, 
putrefying  smells,  brandy,  tobacco,  dogs,  cats  and 
all  the  other  unutterable  things,  we  are  asked  to 
give  up  this  Bible  that  alone  has  saved  the  world 
from  despair  and  given  hope  to  the  sons  of  men. 

O,  it  is  pitiful,  this  story  of  Raymond. 

It  is  heart-breaking. 

It  is  heart-breaking,  this  book  and  kindred  writ- 
ing in  the  outrage  of  their  deceptive  vacuity. 

To  come  to  this  book  apparently  authorized  by 
a  scientific  mind  and  asking  yourself,  is  there  at 
last  outside  of  the  Bible  a  revelation  that  will  meet 
the  questions  that  rise  throngingly  in  the  soul  and 
then  find  this,  is  as  though  one  were  smitten  rudely 
in  the  face  while  his  ears  were  greeted  with  mock- 
ing laughter. 

Compare  the  first  part  of  the  book  where  a 
father's  heart  through  its  intense  emotionalism  sug- 
gests the  ready  answers  for  the  watching,  lurking 
and  lying  spirit  waiting  to  personate  his  son 
through  yielding  mediums  and  their  various  con- 
trols; compare  this  part  of  the  book  where  it  is 
easily  seen  the  father  is  the  dupe  of  his  own  mind 
and  the  cosmic,  fallen  forces  ready  to  blind  him, 
with  the  last  part  of  the  book  where  the  father  him- 
self writes  of  life  and  death,  deals  with  them  as 


Communications  From  Fallen  Angels    63 


O' 


a  man  of  science,  a  man  of  acute  intelligence,  set- 
ting forth  premise  and  drawing  conclusions,  and  it 
will  be  seen  that  in  this  latter  part  you  have  a 
thinker  who,  whatever  the  faultiness  of  his  premise, 
nevertheless  holds  himself  intellectually  well  in 
hand.  Make  this  comparison,  analyze  both  parts 
and  it  will  be  a  demonstration,  by  the  immense  con- 
trast, that  in  the  mediumistic  side  of  the  book  you 
have  a  man  (giving  credence  to  these  mediumistic 
messages)  a  man  who  has  flung  aside  his  native, 
self-protecting  powers  of  observation  and  reason, 
giving  himself  up  blindly  and  without  resistance  to 
all  the  forces  of  evil  which  in  the  name  of  his  love 
play  upon  him  at  their  will. 

The  great  thing  upon  which  he  and  others  count 
is  that  a  certain  photograph  of  Raymond  of  which 
the  family  is  totally  ignorant  Is  revealed  to  them 
through  the  medium  or  the  spirit  movements  of 
the  table.  These  credulous  persons  fail  to  see  that 
all  such  knowledge  is  within  the  range  and  power 
of  those  forces  the  Word  of  God  names  as  wander- 
ing spirits. 


vn 

THESE   WANDERING   SPIRITS   ARE   ALSO 
CALLED  "  SEDUCING  SPIRITS  " 

AND  they  are. 
Their  aim  is  to  seduce  the  souls  of  men 
and  lead  them  afar  from  Him  who  alone 
is  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life;  by  Whom 
alone  any  soul  can  find  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and 
Sonship  eternal  with  Him. 

Nowhere  is  this  more  manifest  than  in  the  two 
books  written  by  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  the 
"New  Revelation,"  and  "The  Vital  Message." 
These  books  ought  to  delight  the  heart  of  every 
higher  critic.  They  ought  to  find  in  them  a  whole 
arsenal  of  equipment  for  their  assault  upon  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  Bible. 

Like  them,  the  author  of  the  books  repudiates 
the  sacrificial  value  of  the  death  of  Christ. 

The  death  of  Christ  as  such  is  based  upon  the 
proposition  of  "  original "  sin  and  the  fall  of  the 
natural  man  to  a  lower  plane. 

The  writer  of  the  New  Revelation  tells  us 
with  oracular  utterance  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  original  sin.     Man  did  not  fall. 

With  such  a  conclusion  unhesitatingly  assumed 
he  asks  us  with  great  simplicity,  hardly  worthy  of 

64 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  65 

the  sagacity  of  the  creator  of  Sherlock  Holmes,  if 
it  is  not  plain  enough  to  see  that  when  sin  and  the 
fall  are  left  out  there  can  be  no  need  of  atonement, 
and  since  these  propositions  must  be  left  out,  the 
death  of  Christ  has  neither  sacrificial  nor  saving 
value  ? 

Christianity,  he  tells  us,  has  made  too  much  of 
the  death  of  Christ.  The  one  thing  that  recom- 
mends Christ  to  him  and,  as  he  thinks,  to  the  world, 
is  the  life  of  Christ,  the  life  as  He  lived  it  when 
on  earth. 

According  to  Sir  Conan  Doyle  and  the  advanced 
men  in  the  pulpit  (who  ought  to  crown  him  as 
head  master  of  their  kind)  Christ  came  into  the 
world  as  a  great  psychic,  a  forward  sent  reformer, 
to  lay  down  the  principles  of  His  life  that  men 
might  study  and  follow  them.  Perhaps  in  all  the 
utterances  and  mouthings  made  in  these  days  by 
men  who  would  talk  and  teach  on  religious  matters, 
there  is  nothing  so  tawdry,  so  shoddy  like  in  all  its 
accents,  in  all  the  texture  of  its  thought  as  this  doc- 
trine, this  slogan,  this  rallying  cry,  that  we  are  to 
follow  the  principles  of  Christ. 

The  author  of  the  books  which  have  made  him 
so  widely  known,  as  well  as  his  confreres  in  the 
modern  pulpit,  have  failed  to  see  or  are  unwilling 
to  see,  that  Jesus  Christ  did  not  come  into  this 
world  to  lay  down  any  code  of  morals,  any  system 
of  principles  or  maxims. 

They  fail  to  see,  taking  Him  at  His  words  as 


66  "  Seducing  Spirits  " 

reported  in  the  New  Testament,  that  He  never 
once  asked  men  to  believe  in  His  system,  His  code, 
or  to  follow  and  practice  His  principles. 

He  talked  of  salvation  and  damnation. 

He  never  once  said  that  he  who  should  believe 
in  and  follow  His  principles  should  have  eternal 
life  and  be  saved. 

He  never  once  said  that  he  who  should  refuse 
to  believe  in  and  follow  His  principles  should  die 
and  be  forever  damned,  miss  the  fellowship  of  God 
the  Father  and  be  lost  forever. 

He  never  made  His  principles  an  issue  at  all. 

The  supreme  issue  He  set  before  men  was — 
Himself. 

He  set  Himself  before  men,  not  as  truthful,  but 
as — very  Truth,  essential  Truth  itself. 

He  set  Himself  before  men  as  life  and  as  the 
Author  of  life. 

Since  He  claimed  to  be  truth  and  life  and  the 
Author  of  life,  and  truth  and  life  are  found  essen- 
tially only  in  God,  He  claimed  to  be  the  unique  way 
to  God,  not  only  to  God  as  God,  but  to  God  as  the 
Father. 

Therefore  He  said  no  man  could  come  unto  the 
Father  but  by  Him. 

In  this  statement  He  excluded  every  human  be- 
ing from  sonship  with  God  unless  they  should  come 
by  Him ;  and  that  Is,  by  faith  in  Him. 

He  made  Himself  more  than  the  way  to  God. 

He  claimed  to  be  very  God,  Son  of  God,  and  as 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  67 

of  the  essence  of  the  Father,  necessarily,  God  the 
Son. 

The  issue  He  made  then  was  Himself,  and  Him- 
self as  one  with  the  Father ;  so  that,  in  asking  men 
to  believe  on  Him,  He  was  asking  them  to  believe 
in  Him  precisely  as  He  asked  them  to  believe  in 
God,  believe  He  was  God,  and  that  He  was  equal 
with  Him. 

Nothing  could  be  more  absolute  and  final  than 
His  exhortation  on  the  night  of  the  last  supper. 

Hear  what  He  said : 

"  Ye  believe  in  God,  believe  also  in  me." 

He  made  His  claim  to  equality  with  God  in  such 
fashion  that  there  is  not  even  the  edge  of  a  ques- 
tion left  open  In  it. 

He  said  before  the  world  was  created  He  sat  on 
the  throne  by  the  Father's  side,  the  expression  of 
His  personality  and  glory. 

He  said  all  the  Father  could  do  He  could  do. 

He  had  life  in  Himself.     He  was  self-existent. 

He  claimed  the  essential  and  sacred  name  of 
God. 

He  said,  "  before  Abraham  was — I  am.'* 

It  was  because  He  said  this  the  Jews  took  up 
stones  to  stone  Him ;  not  because  He  claimed  pre- 
exlstence.  What  did  that  matter  to  them?  but 
because  He  said — I  ah  and  thus  claimed  that 
divine  and  sacred  name  as  His  own.  He  could 
have  said,  "  before  Abraham  was  I  was ;  "  but  He 
^d  not;  He  said — I  am,  and  because  He  nevei; 


68  "  Seducing  Spirits  " 

made  a  mistake  in  a  single  utterance  in  His  life,  He 
said  it  with  explicative  determination. 

He  said  He  was  the  image  of  the  Father — who- 
soever saw  Him,  saw  the  Father. 

He  said  He  was  the  ultimate  judge  of  human 
kind. 

He  claimed  to  be  the  resurrection  and  the  life. 
He  had  power  to  raise  the  dead.  He  could  award 
eternal  life  to  some  men,  He  would  ordain  eternal 
damnation  to  others. 

So  clear  and  unqualified  was  His  claim  to  be 
God  that  the  people  again  took  up  stones  to  stone 
Him;  and  when  He  asked  them  why  they  should 
stone  Him  who  had  been  doing  such  good  works 
among  them  they  replied,  not  because  of  any  work 
He  had  done,  but  because,  as  they  said: 

"  Thou,  being  a  man,  makest  thyself  God." 

And  they  were  not  deceived.     He  did. 

Whether  Jesus  Christ  was  God  or  only  a  man, 
only  the  blindest  and  crudest  of  minds  could  fail 
to  see  that  the  one  thing  above  another  He  did 
claim  was,  that  He  was  very  and  eternal  God. 

He  made  His  personality  as  Son  of  God  and 
God  the  Son  the  issue  of  eternal  life  and  death. 

He  said: 

"Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  He  that  be- 
lieveth  on  me  hath  everlasting  life." 

Again  He  said  to  the  people: 

"  If  ye  believe  not  that  I  am  he,  ye  shall  die  in 
your  sins." 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  69 

To  talk  about  such  a  man  as  good,  if  He  were 
not  actual  God,  is  the  veriest  of  intellectual  foolery 
and  mental  self-treason  of  which  any  sane  man 
can  be  excuselessly  guilty. 

To  talk  about  the  principles  of  such  a  man  is  a 
waste  of  time. 

To  put  up  such  an  one  as  an  example  is  as 
gratuitous  as  it  is  wantonly  childish. 

Every  act  of  good  He  did,  He  did  in  connection 
with  a  miracle  or  a  claim  that  put  Him  wholly  out- 
side the  range  of  human  imitation. 

To  separate  His  miracles  from  His  ethics;  to 
take  away  His  miracles  and  leave  His  character, 
is  impossible. 

H  he  performed  them  He  was  more  than  man. 
If  He  never  performed  them,  then  as  credentials 
to  His  claims  they  fail,  and  His  character  fails 
with  them. 

But  set  aside  His  miracles — take  Him  as  an 
ethical  proposition  alone.  What  man  is  there  who 
liveth  who  would  dare  to  stand  forth  and  claim 
as  He  did,  that  he  was  sinless  ? 

Such  a  man  would  either  be  a  self-deceived  man 
or  a  deceiver;  and  the  swiftly  accumulating  evi- 
dence of  his  human  frailty,  not  to  say  sinfulness, 
would  soon  expose  him. 

And  why  talk  about  Him  as  a  reformer? 

What  did  He  try  to  reform  ? 

Instead  of  lifting  His  voice  in  condemnation  of 
war,  bidding  the  soldier  to  take  off  his  helmet,  lay 


70  "  Seducing  Spirits  " 

down  his  shield  and  turn  his  sword  into  a  plough- 
share, his  spear  into  a  pruning  hook,  He  said  that 
He,  Himself,  did  not  come  into  the  world  to  bring 
peace,  but  a  sword.  Even  if  it  be  argued  that  He 
meant  He  came  to  bring  truth  and  truth  would 
produce  a  division,  a  controversy.  He  knew  this 
controversy  would  adjourn  itself  from  the  fire- 
side to  the  field  of  battle  and  carnage. 

He  never  said  a  word  against  slavery. 

On  the  contrary,  He  told  servants  to  be  obedient 
to  their  masters;  and  in  those  days,  the  average 
servant  was  a  slave. 

Poverty  and  beggary  in  their  pitifulness  met 
Him  at  every  turn.  He  said  no  word  that  can  be 
taken  as  a  protest;  on  the  contrary.  He  said  it 
would  continue  In  the  world  till  He  should  return 
from  Heaven.  By  that  He  meant  that  no  Institu- 
tion or  system  He  should  establish  would  cure  or 
abolish  it. 

He  knew  labour  was  whiplashed  by  the  tyranny 
of  capital;  yet,  He  gave  no  suggestion  that  the 
hours  of  toil  should  be  shortened  and  wages  in- 
creased. 

By  these  statements  and  negative  attitudes  He 
emptied  His  mission  of  every  fundamental  of  a 
reformer. 

He  repudiated  all  sound  principles  of  exchange 
and  money  circulation  when  He  told  Peter  to  go 
catch  a  fish,  find  a  piece  of  money  In  Its  mouth 
and  with  that  pay  taxes  for  them  both.     The  finan- 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  71 

cier  who  should  suggest  the  following  of  such  an 
example  would  not  hold  his  credit  as  a  counsellor 
in  finance  long;  nor  would  such  an  example  if 
insisted  on  be  an  inspiration  to  toil  for  daily 
wage. 

He  never  placed  Himself  forward  as  an  advo- 
cate of  thrift  saving.  He  never  told  young  men 
to  lay  by  for  the  rainy  day.  Instead  of  that  He 
told  them  if  they  would  save  to  lay  up  their  treas- 
ures in  Heaven. 

His  advice  concerning  a  highwayman  or,  at 
least,  an  insistent  neighbour  who  should  demand 
your  coat  that  you  should  give  him  the  rest  of  your 
wardrobe,  would  not  be  conducive  to  the  cure  of 
lawlessness  nor  act  as  an  incentive  to  work  for  a 
living. 

Judged  by  all  the  standards  of  reform  Jesus 
Christ  was  the  most  impracticable  man  who  ever 
lived. 

He  Himself  never  saved  any  money. 

He  did  not  buy  a  house  and  live  in  it. 

He  never  attempted  to  own  anything  in  this 
world. 

He  said  the  birds  had  nests  and  the  foxes  had 
holes,  but  He  did  not  have  a  place  where  as  owner 
He  could  even  lay  His  head. 

What  then  is  the  secret  of  His  life? 

The  secret  that  Conan  Doyle  and  those  who 
think  like  him  miss? 

This  is  the  secret. 


72  "  Seducing  Spirits  " 

He  did  not  come  into  the  world  to  live  at  all. 

His  miracles  were  not  his  vocation.  They  were 
simply  the  credentials  for  a  local  area  that  He  was 
what  He  claimed  to  be  and  as  a  seal  to  the  purpose 
for  which  He  came  into  the  world. 

He  came  into  the  world  but  for  one  ultimate 
purpose. 

Even  had  the  Jews  accepted  Him  as  their  cove- 
nant king  it  would  have  been  an  action  that  would 
have  led  to  the  fulfillment  of  this  purpose. 

He  came  into  the  world  to  fulfill  a  purpose,  pur- 
posed from  all  eternity.  He  came  into  the  world 
to  die. 

If  the  record  of  the  New  Testament  is  to  be 
believed;  if  His  own  words  are  to  be  accepted — 
He  came  to  die. 

If  He  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecies  of  the 
Old  Testament;  if  He  responds  in  any  wise  as  an 
antitype  to  all  the  types  (and  all  the  circumstances 
of  His  birth,  His  life,  His  deeds,  His  character, 
fit  into  these  types  and  fulfill  them  to  the  letter 
till  this  certified  fulfillment  becomes  a  demonstra- 
tion), then  He  came  into  the  world  to  die  as  the 
Lamb  of  God,  to  offer  Himself  as  a  sin  offering, 
a  propitiation  for  the  sin  of  the  world  (the  sin  of 
the  first  man  and  the  nature  of  sin  inherited  by 
his  posterity)  and  as  an  atonement  for  the  sins 
and  transgressions  of  those  who  by  faith  should 
so  offer  Him,  claiming  Him  as  a  personal  substi- 
tute to  pay  the  judgment  due  them. 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  73 

Talk  too  much!  make  too  much  of  the  death  of 
Christ! 

The  whole  sum  and  substance  of  Christianity 
lies,  not  in  the  earthly  life  of  Christ  at  all,  but  in 
His  sacrificial  death  on  the  cross. 

What  was  the  one  theme  of  the  Apostle  Paul, 
the  greatest  preacher  of  Christ  the  world  has  ever 
had? 

Was  it  the  life  the  Christ  of  God  lived  when  He 
was  on  earth? 

Nay! 

Hear  what  he  says: 

"  God  forbid  that  I  should  glory,  save  in  the 
cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

What  was  the  supreme  motive  of  his  marvellous 
preaching  ? 

Was  it  the  life  the  blessed  Son  of  God  lived  on 
the  earth  in  all  the  perfectness  of  His  character 
and  the  benediction  of  His  words  and  deeds? 

Nay! 

Hear  what  he  says  for  himself: 

"I  determined  not  to  know  anything  among 
you,  save  Jesus  Christ,  and  him  crucified.'* 

And  why  has  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  been  exalted, 
made  higher  than  the  heavens  and  by  the  Father 
given  this  name  of  Jesus  which  is  above  every 
name;  and  why  is  every  knee  to  bow  to  Him  in 
heaven,  in  earth  and  under  the  earth ;  why  is  every 
tongue  to  confess  that  He  is  Lord  to  the  glory  of 
the  Father? 


74  "  Seducing  Spirits  " 

Is  it  because  of  the  beautiful  and  fruitful  life 
He  lived  on  earth  ? 

Is  it  because  of  the  splendid  moral  principle  He 
laid  down  for  mankind  to  follow  ? 

Is  it  because  He  showed  Himself  willing  to 
renovate  society,  cure  its  social  evils  and  leave 
principles  to  be  taught  whose  germinating  quality 
should  bring  forth  such  a  harvest  of  righteousness 
that  the  world  would  be  gradually  transformed 
into  the  kingdom  of  God  ? 

Again  let  it  be  said  and  with  all  the  emphasis — 
Nay! 

Hear  the  reason  given  by  the  Apostle  speaking 
under  inspiration: 

"  Being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  he  humbled 
himself,  and  became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the 
death  of  the  cross. 

"  Wherefore—" 

Let  that  "  wherefore  "  be  put  in  capital  letters 
and  emphasized. 

"WHEREFORE: 

"  God  also  hath  highly  exalted  him." 

There  you  have  it.  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has 
been  exalted  and  glorified  because  He  died  on  the 
cross. 

And  because  He  was  obedient  to  the  death  of 
the  cross. 

To  be  obedient  to  that  death  He  must  have  been 
commanded  to  die;  He  must  have  come  into  the 
world  to  obey  that  commandment  and,  therefore, 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  75 

to  die  and  not  live  was  the  purpose  for  which  He 
came  into  the  world. 

Was  the  commandment  to  die  given  Him  of  the 
Father? 

It  was. 

He  says  so  Himself. 

Hear  His  own  words: 

"  Therefore  doth  my  Father  love  me." 

Stop  and  let  that  word  "  therefore  "  arrest  your 
attention. 

Therefore  is  causative. 

It  gives  us  the  cause  of  the  Father's  love.  Why 
He  so  specially  loved  His  Son. 

Why  was  it?     Why  did  He  love  Him ? 

Because  of  this  earthly  life  He  so  perfectly 
lived?  Because  of  the  example  He  set  before 
men?  Because  of  the  righteous  and  social  prin- 
ciples He  laid  down  for  men  to  follow  ? 

Let  the  Son  of  God  Himself  answer  and  put  an 
end  to  all  controversy: 

"  Therefore  doth  my  Father  love  me,  be- 
cause I  lay  down  my  life,  that  I  may  take  it 
again." 

The  Father  loves  Him  because  He  lays  down  His 
life. 

Why  does  He  lay  it  down  ? 

He  answers  that  question. 

"  I  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep."  (That  is, 
instead  of  the  sheep.) 

What  shall  be  said  of  this  laying  down  of  life, 


76  "Seducing  Spirits" 

this  matter  of  death  on  the  cross  as  a  command- 
ment? 

Let  Him  again  speak  for  Himself: 

"  No  man  taketh  it  from  me,  but  I  lay  it  down 
of  myself." 

He  was  not  killed — He  died  by  His  own  act — ^by 
the  act  of  His  will. 

"  I  have  power  to  lay  it  down,  and  I  have  power 
to  take  it  again. 

"  This  commandment  have  I  received  from 
THE  Father.'' 

This  settles  it. 

He  came  into  the  world  under  the  covenant  com- 
mandment of  the  Father,  not  to  live,  but  to  die. 
The  purpose  for  which  He  came  into  the  world 
was  not  to  live  and  set  Himself  up  as  an  exemplar 
of  righteousness,  nor  lay  down  principles  that 
should  revolutionize  the  world  morally  and  socially. 
He  came  for  none  of  these  things. 

He  came  to  die. 

He  Himself  said  unless  He  should  die  He  could 
be  of  no  saving  value  to  the  world. 

He  said  if  a  grain  of  corn  did  not  fall  into  the 
ground  and  die  it  would  bring  forth  no  fruit. 

It  would  abide  alone. 

By  this  He  was  saying  simply  that  if  He  should 
continue  to  live  His  perfect  life  and  then  return 
to  the  Heaven  from  whence  He  came;  if  He  left 
His  example  alone  to  be  followed  no  mortal  man 
could  ever  attain  to  it,  nor  would  it  be  possible  to 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  77 

become  a  partaker  of  that  pure,  spiritual  and 
eternal  life  that  animated  Him. 

He  was  saying  that  if  He  did  not  die  He  would 
be  like  the  unplanted  seed,  there  would  be  no  re- 
production of  Himself  either  in  life  or  character  in 
the  souls  of  men. 

In  saying  this  He  was  affirming  what  all  Scrip- 
ture proclaims,  that  man  is  under  sentence  of  death, 
and  that  this  sentence  has  been  legislated  against 
him  by  the  righteousness  of  God.  Not  till  this 
claim  of  divine  righteousness  was  fully  met  could 
a  new  and  spiritual  life  be  given  to  the  best  of 
men. 

No  matter  how  much  God  might  love  the  worst 
sinner  and  wish  to  save  him,  give  him  the  new  and 
worthwhile  life,  He  could  not  break  the  demand  of 
His  own  law.  To  do  that  would  be  to  make  His 
love  the  instrument  of  lawlessness.  His  love 
would  itself  become  lawlessness. 

Before  any  man  could  have  the  life  in  the  Son 
of  God  and  therefore  the  impetus  and  power  of 
His  character  he  must  die  and  in  dying  he  must 
fully  exhaust  the  power  or  claim  of  death. 

But  it  is  impossible  for  any  mere  man  to  get  be- 
yond the  extent  of  death. 

There  is  no  discharge  in  that  war. 

Once  in  the  grasp  of  death  there  is  no  deliver- 
ance; for  death  is  justifying  righteousness  as  well 
as  the  life  that  is  lived  in  perfect  obedience  to  it. 

As  there  is  no  limit  to  the  demand  of  righteous- 


78  "  Seducing  Spirits  " 

ness,  there  can  be  no  limit  to  the  extent  of  death 
that  sustains  it. 

The  only  hope  for  any  man  would  be  that  an- 
other should  be  willing  to  take  his  place  and  die 
in  his  stead. 

Another ! 

Where  could  another  be  found  ? 

He  must  be  a  man. 

But  what  kind  of  a  man? 

Evidently  a  man  against  whom  the  law  of  sin 
and  death  had  no  claim.  Such  a  man  of  necessity 
must  be  without  sin;  not  only  in  action,  but  in 
character  and  nature. 

There  is  none  such.  There  never  has  been,  and 
there  never  can  be  one  of  the  natural  race  of  man. 

At  nature  evolution  breaks  down.  In  spite  of 
every  pretension  of  culture  human  nature  remains 
the  same  to-day  as  in  the  days  when  the  Son  of 
God  walked  the  earth.  He  said  you  cannot  gather 
grapes  from  thorns,  nor  figs  from  thistles.  He 
said  that  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh  and  that 
which  is  born  of  the  spirit  is  spirit,  thereby  laying 
down  as  an  unchangeable  law  that  what  was  born 
of  the  flesh  would  always  be  flesh,  never  could  be- 
come spirit;  and  that  whatever  was  born  of  spirit 
would  always  be  spirit ;  that  between  them  there  was 
more  than  a  bridgeless  Atlantic  Ocean  difference. 
In  no  single  case  in  the  world's  history  has  a  natural 
man  by  any  inhering  law  evolved  a  spiritual  life,  or 
a  life  that  had  any  relation  to  the  life  of  the  Son  of 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  79 

God  essentially.  A  Frenchman  may  live  in  all  re- 
spects like  an  Englishman,  even  become  a  citizen 
of  the  realm  of  England,  he  never  can  become  an 
actual  Englishman.  No  matter  what  heights  the 
natural  man  may  attain  morally  he  never  can  make 
himself  a  partaker  of  the  life  of  the  Son  of  God. 

But  even  if  a  sinless  man  could  be  found,  one 
against  whom  the  law  of  righteousness  had  no 
claim,  he  never  could  make  an  atonement  for  man 
to  God. 

Only  God  can  atone  to  God ;  for  only  that  which 
is  equal  can  meet  that  which  is  equal.  Only  God 
can  satisfy  God. 

If  God  would  atone  for  man  then  God  must  die. 

But  God  as  God  cannot  die. 

God  could  die,  or  taste  death,  only  by  having  a 
nature  that  could  die.  There  is  only  one  nature 
God  could  have  that  would  enable  Him  to  die  and 
meet  the  penalty  against  man,  that  would  be  a 
human  nature. 

This  is  the  necessity  and  explanation  of  the  In- 
carnation. 

God  the  Son  created  a  human  nature  for  Him- 
self. 

It  was  the  Son  who  did  this  because  He  alone  of 
the  eternal  Godhead  is  the  visibility  of  God;  He 
alone  has  been  such  from  all  eternity — as  Paul  says 
— "in  the  form  (therefore  the  appearing)  of  God." 

He  created  this  human  nature  that  he  might 
ojBfer  it  both  as  a  propitiation  and  an  atonement. 


80  "  Seducing  Spirits  " 

He  could  make  propitiation  and  reconcile 
the  world  to  God  on  precisely  the  same  principle 
by  which  the  first  man  sinned  and  tore  the  race 
away  from  spiritual  union  with  God. 

The  principle  of  the  one  for  the  many. 

One  man  sinned,  brought  in  a  nature  of  sin  and 
a  race  of  sinners. 

A  second  man  who  at  the  same  time  was  per- 
sonally God,  very  God,  could  meet  the  sin  of  the 
first  man,  reconcile  the  world  to  God  and  rising 
superior  to  death  take  the  place  as  God  the  Second 
man,  the  giver  of  new  and  spiritual  life  to  men  and 
link  them  as  a  new  race  to  himself  as  their  new  and 
eternal  head. 

This  is  why  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  came  into  the 
world  to  die. 

This  is  the  meaning  and  consequent  of  the  death 
of  Christ. 

This  was  the  great  objective  purpose  of  Incarna- 
tion. 

When  the  angels  sang  over  His  birth  and  an- 
nounced peace  on  earth  to  men  of  good  will,  they 
were  not  announcing  Him  as  the  bringer  of  peace 
to  the  nations  as  such,  but  as  the  Lamb  of  God  who 
should  make  peace  between  the  world  and  God, 
peace  between  the  individual  and  his  God ;  as  it  is 
written: 

"  Having  made  peace  through  the  blood  of  the 
cross,  by  him  to  reconcile  all  things  unto  himself." 

That  is,  by  the  sacrificial  death  of  the  cross,  God 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  81 

could  reconcile  the  world  to  Himself,  deal  with  it 
as  under  a  suspended  sentence  and  act  toward  it  in 
grace;  and  then  would  the  risen  Christ  give  to 
every  individual  accepting  Him  as  the  sacrificed 
Lamb  of  God,  the  life  and  nature  that  should  unite 
him  in  fellowship  and  peace  with  God. 

Therefore  it  is  written: 

"  We  are  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  his 
Son." 

Talk  too  much  about  the  death  of  Christ !  Make 
too  much  of  the  death  of  Christ ! 

H  this  Bible  be  true,  if  it  be  not  the  veriest 
fiction  that  ever  deceived  and  fooled  the  trusting 
souls  of  men,  then  every  man  on  earth,  saint  or 
sinner,  believer  or  infidel  is  living,  and  living  only 
because  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ  holds  back 
judgment  that  grace  may  reign  and  that  men  tak- 
ing advantage  of  this  grace  may  through  faith  of 
the  crucified  and  risen  Christ  receive  the  new 
life  that  shall  link  them  as  sons  to  the  living 
God. 

No  greater  folly  was  ever  uttered  or  put  into 
print  than  that  too  much  can  be  made  of  the  death 
of  Christ. 

Take  it  out  of  the  Gospel  and  you  empty  the  Gos- 
pel of  all  there  is  in  it  and  make  the  preaching  of  it 
worse  than  childish  folly,  a  deception  to  the 
souls  of  men  and  a  self-arraignment  and  con- 
demnation of  the  man  who  preaches  it. 

The  failure  of  preachers  to  make  much  of  it  is 


82  "  Seducing  Spirits  " 

one  of  the  signs  this  age  of  grace  is  drawing  to  its 
close  and  that  the  down  grade,  the  apostasy  fore- 
told, has  begun. 

In  repudiating  the  sacrificial  and  atoning  value 
of  the  death  of  Christ,  Sir  Conan  Doyle  repudiates 
the  Christ  in  whom  both  the  Old  and  New,  Testa- 
ment Scriptures  find  their  center. 

The  Bible  knows  nothing  about  an  unsacrlficial 
and  a  mere  ethically  living  Christ. 

He  who  repudiates  a  sacrificial  Christ,  repudiates 
the  Bible  as  supreme  authority. 

Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  has  no  hesitancy  in  do- 
ing that. 

He  pats  it  on  the  back  and  praises  it  that  he  may 
feel  at  liberty  to  prove  how  full  it  is  of  unreliability 
and  contradictions. 

He  does  this  that  he  may  deny  it  as  final 
authority. 

He  is  under  bonds  to  deny  it  as  final  authority 
because  it  is  continually  presenting  in  one  form  or 
another  the  necessity  for  the  death  of  Christ  as  the 
one  and  only  way  of  salvation. 

The  Bible  continually  throws  the  fact  of  sin  in 
the  face  of  him  who  reads  it.  Continually  it  an- 
nounces without  shedding  of  blood  is  no  remission 
of  sin ;  and  when  it  wishes  to  bring  hope  and  com- 
fort to  the  sinner  who  reads  it  it  says:  "  The  blood 
of  Jesus  Christ  his  Son  (God's  Son)  cleanseth  us 
from  all  sin."  When  it  says  this  it  is  saying,  as 
blood  violently  poured  out  is  sacrificial,  it  is  the 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  83 

sacrifice  of  Christ  alone  that  can  set  the  sinner 
legally  clean  in  the  sight  of  God. 

The  author  of  "  The  New  Revelation  "  believes 
nothing  of  the  kind;  for  he  has  a  different  view 
of  sin  from  that  defined  in  the  Bible. 

He  looks  upon  sin  as  a  matter  of  genital  weak- 
ness. 

Sin  Is  not  a  criminal  and  vindictive  attitude 
against  God,  it  is  purely  pathological. 

The  slanting  brow  and  the  bulging  back  head 
must  be  accused  and  not  the  unfortunate  person- 
ality dwelling  in  the  unbalanced  body.  Genital 
malformation  and  not  resident  evil  in  the  soul 
must  bear  the  responsibility. 

In  the  spiritistic  system  religion  and  faith  are 
not  factors  at  all. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  grave  all  faiths,  all  re- 
ligions, no  religion  and  no  faith,  Idolater  and  Chris- 
tian, Romanist  and  Protestant  all  arrive  at  the  same 
place  and  In  the  same  general  good  condition. 

The  question  of  sin  is  not  raised. 

Since  according  to  Sir  Conan  sin  Is  wholly  a 
matter  of  material  construction  the  moment  the 
soul  Is  relieved  from  the  body  all  those  attitudes 
and  actions  are  negatived,  the  freed  soul  has  no 
consciousness  of  them. 

It  Is  because  of  this  utter  evacuation  of  the  idea 
of  sin  in  relation  to  the  soul  or  the  individual  that 
no  issue  of  faith  or  religion,  and  In  reality,  if  the 
matter  be  pressed  to  Its  conclusion,  no  issue  of 


84  "  Seducing  Spirits  " 

right  or  wrong  as  set  up  by  religious  standards  can 
have  any  place  on  the  other  side. 

In  the  nature  of  the  case  religious  faith  and  de- 
votion can  have  no  special  reward  and  unbelief 
can  have  no  punishment. 

There  is  no  punishment  on  the  other  side. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  hell. 

As  one  of  the  spiritistic  leaders  says: 

"  The  joy  of  heaven  is  the  emptying  of  hell." 

Sir  Conan  Doyle  cannot  believe  in  hell  because 
the  Bible  proclaims  it,  but  he  can  believe  in  a  pell- 
mell  heaven  in  behalf  of  those  who  are  fitted  for 
hell  because  a  tilting  table  tells  him  in  spasmodic 
knockings  there  is  one. 

In  giving  us  "The  New  Revelation"  and  in 
turning  away  from  the  Bible,  the  author  is  willing 
to  accept  the  most  unsubstantial  evidence  concern- 
ing the  unseen  world  and  the  state  of  the  dead. 

Never  have  I  anywhere  in  all  the  wide  range  of 
my  reading  and  observation  seen  such  childlike 
faith  and  willingness  to  accept  any  miracle  pro- 
claimed or  perpetrated  in  seances — a  faith  that  in 
reality  borders  on  the  surrender  of  the  most  ele- 
mentary conditions  of  reasoning  and  logic. 

Here  then  are  two  men ! 

Both  representatively  intelligent. 

The  one,  a  scientist  with  developed  tendencies  to 
metaphysics,  the  other,  a  man  of  high  creative 
imagination  and  constructive  literary  genius;  both 
of  them  in  the  grip  of  a  thing  which  reveals  in 


"  Seducing  Spirits  "  85 

them  side  by  side  with  their  sound  reasoning  a 
credulity  and  blindness  intensely  pathetic  and 
terrible.  Pathetic,  because  of  the  helpless,  unre- 
strained way  in  which  they  allow  themselves  to  be 
submerged  by  spiritistic  delusion.  Terrible,  be- 
cause of  the  soul-destroying  consequences  not  only 
to  themselves,  but  by  their  example,  to  others. 

To  all  statements  they  may  make,  to  all  reasons 
they  offer  as  cogent,  to  every  fact  they  present, 
there  is  one  all  sufficient  answer — and  that  is: 

Wandering  spirits. 

Lying  and  seducing  spirits. 

It  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecy  made  of  long 
date  and  already  quoted: 

"  Now  the  Spirit  speaketh  expressly  that  in  the 
latter  times,  certain  ones  shall  apostatize  from  the 
faith,  giving  heed  to  wandering  spirits,  and  to  the 
teachings  of  demons,  speaking  lies  in  hypocrisy." 


VIII 

THE  SUFFERING  OF  THE  CHRISTLESS 

DEAD     IS     DUE     TO     THEIR 

DISCARNATE   STATE 

THE  proof  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the 
story  of  the  demoniac  of  Gadara. 
The  spokesman  of  the  spirits  in  the 
man  cried  out: 

"  What  have  I  to  do  with  thee,  Jesus,  thou  Son 
of  God  most  high.  I  beseech  thee,  torment  me 
not." 

This  is  a  startling  cry. 

Listen  to  it  again: 

"  I  beseech  thee,  torment  me  not." 

Why  did  he  cry  that  ? 

What  torment  did  he  expect  from  the  Son  of 
God? 

The  explanation  is  given  in  the  following  verse. 

We  are  told  he  made  this  beseeching  plea  be- 
cause the  Lord  had  commanded  the  spirit  and  his 
companions  to  come  out  of  the  man. 

To  be  out  of  the  body,  then,  to  be  discarnate  was 
the  torment  against  which  the  demon  protested. 

This  is  in  the  nature  and  logic  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  man. 

Man  is  a  threefold  being.  He  is  spirit,  soul  and 
body. 

86 


Suffering  Due  to  Their  Discarnate  State   8T 

The  soul  is  the  person. 

Spirit  and  body  are  the  agents. 

When  a  person  dies  spirit  and  soul  are  not 
separated. 

They  go  out  of  the  body  together. 

The  spirit  becomes  henceforth  the  vehicle  of  the 
sou!,  the  instrument  of  its  expression.  This  is  the 
reason  why  the  disembodied  soul  is  so  frequently 
spoken  of  as  a  spirit. 

All  the  appetites,  desires,  sensations,  every  emo- 
tion are  centered  in  the  Soul. 

It  is  not  the  body  or  any  of  its  nerves  that  are 
subject  to  sensation  at  all.  These  are  means  to 
convey  sensation  to  the  soul.  The  soul  alone 
feels.  A  dead  body  has  no  feeling  of  any  sort. 
A  few  moments  before  death  the  individual  is  con- 
scious of  pain  and  may  locate  it  in  some  part  of 
the  body,  but  the  sensation  is  in  the  soul.  A  sec- 
ond after  death  there  is  no  response  in  the  body,  it 
does  not  resent  or  resist  that  which  would  have 
made  it  quiver  before.  Wherein  is  the  difference? 
Shall  it  be  said  it  is  the  absence  of  breath  from  the 
lungs  ?  But  you  can  go  into  a  chemical  laboratory 
and  manufacture  the  very  breath  that  aforetime 
was  in  the  lungs.  You  will  have  breath,  but  you 
will  not  have  life,  you  will  not  have  personality. 
Even  if  you  could  open  the  eyes  and  force  the 
vocal  organs  mechanically  to  speak  there  would  be 
no  individualism  there ;  nor  would  there  be  any  in- 
dication of  feeling.     That  body  with  all  the  re- 


88    Suffering  Due  to  Their  Discaniate  State 

animation  you  could  give  it  would  have  no  sensa- 
tion. There  is  only  one  decent  conclusion,  some- 
thing more  than  breath  was  in  that  body  before. 
That  something  was  a  some  one,  a  person,  and  it 
was  the  some  one,  the  person  we  call  a  soul,  that 
in  that  body  previously  was  happy  or  sorrowful, 
felt  pain  and  suffered. 

Make  no  mistake  about  it — all  feeling  and  there- 
fore all  appetites,  all  emotions  and  desires  of  every 
and  any  kind  are  exclusively  in  the  soul,  the  per- 
son. 

As  these  emotional  conditions  do  not  remain  in 
the  body  when  the  soul  goes  out  of  the  body  then 
the  soul  takes  its  emotions,  its  appetites,  its  desires 
and  its  capacity  of  sensation  with  it. 

The  appetites  and  the  desires  are  all  there,  just 
the  same  and  just  as  intense  and  in  one  sense  more 
than  when  in  the  body.  This  is  so  because  the 
mechanical  construction  of  the  body  sometimes 
gives  out  as  when  a  telephone  wire  or  an  electrical 
transmitter  is  out  of  order.  If  an  arm  or  a  foot 
is  paralyzed  while  the  individual  is  alive  he  does 
not  feel  sensation  through  either  of  those  mem- 
bers. At  death  the  soul  is  freed  from  whatever 
atrophy  of  sensational  transmission  may  have  been 
in  the  body.  The  moment  freed  the  resident  sen- 
sation, whatever  It  Is,  manifests  Itself. 

All  this  Is  true  because  the  soul  Is  not  a  mere 
nimbus.  It  has  form,  and  the  form  is  the  same  as 
the  body.     Daniel  speaks  of  his  body  as  a  sheath, 


Suffering  Due  to  Their  Discarnate  State   89 


*o 


a  scabbard.  Just  as  the  scabbard  is  in  a  degree  the 
form  of  the  sword  within  it,  so  is  the  body  in  a 
degree  the  indication  of  the  soul  in  it.  The  soul 
in  the  new  state  of  disembodiment  is,  paradoxical 
as  it  may  seem,  but  nevertheless  true,  more  keenly 
sensitive  than  ever. 

The  man  who  drank  whiskey  wants  whiskey. 

The  man  and  woman  who  have  given  them- 
selves up  to  lust  while  here,  find  themselves  burn- 
ing and  mad  with  their  lusts  when  out  of  the 
body. 

This  accounts  for  and  explains  the  demand  of 
the  rich  man  that  Lazarus  should  come  and  dip 
his  finger  in  water  and  cool  his  tongue. 

It  is  not  a  question  whether  there  was  any  water 
or  whether  there  was  any  tongue. 

The  fact  is  the  man  had  in  his  soul  the  sensa- 
tion of  thirst  and  in  calling  out  for  its  gratifica- 
tion he  used  the  terms  of  his  earth  existence. 

The  spirit  has  no  functional  powers  with  which 
to  meet  the  sensation  of  the  soul  with  respect  to  its 
earth  sphere  desires. 

The  body  is  gone. 

Here  is  the  agony,  the  torment,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  mental  and  moral  side  of  it. 

Appetites,  desires  growing  more  and  more  in- 
tense because  not  satisfied. 

And  no  way  to  satisfy  them. 

Disembodied — discarnate — that  is,  indeed,  fright- 
ful. 


90    Suffering  Due  to  Their  Discarnate  State 

And  here  is  the  meaning  and  logic  of  death  at 
last. 

Embodiment  is  natural. 

It  is  the  completion  of  man. 

It  was  given  him  in  original  creation  because 
God  intended  him  to  live,  not  in  Heaven  or  some 
other  sphere,  but  on  earth. 

Had  not  man  sinned  and  fallen  his  body  would 
have  been  made  immortal. 

His  multiplication  would  have  eventually  reached 
its  limit  and  the  population  of  earth  remained  sta- 
tionary and  eternal.  Only  after  the  fall  was  the 
conception  of  the  woman  multiplied,  only  after 
death  came  in  and  made  it  necessary  that  each  gen- 
eration should  be  replenished. 

Death  is  not  natural. 

It  is  a  violation  of  nature. 

It  could  not  come  except  by  the  will  of  God. 
Since  He  wills  it  and  it  is  unnatural,  a  violation  of 
the  law  of  embodiment,  then  it  is  an  imposition 
from  God,  and  as  such  is  a  sentence  and  a  punish- 
ment. 

As  death  removes  the  individual  from  the  earth 
sphere  it  ought  to  be  seen  without  much  diffi- 
culty that  it  is  not  an  issue  of  the  continuance  of 
the  soul  but  a  change  in  the  sphere  of  existence 
of  the  soul,  and  along  with  it  the  mode  of  exist- 
ence. 

Death  therefore  is  the  banishment  of  man  from 
the  sphere  of  the  earth. 


Suffering  Due  to  Their  Discarnate  State   91 

The  banishment  of  man  from  the  habitat  origi- 
nally given  him  of  God. 

He  is  removed  from  the  earth  sphere  by  the 
death  of  his  body. 

Death  therefore  has  no  relation  to  the  existence 
of  the  soul. 

Death  has  to  do  with  the  mechanical  construction 
called  the  body;  that  body  which  in  Scripture  is 
called  a  house  of  clay,  a  tabernacle,  a  temple,  a 
tent,  an  earthen  vessel,  a  garment,  a  robe;  that 
body  which  at  death  Scripture  says  is  taken  down 
as  one  takes  down  a  tent ;  that  body  out  of  which 
at  death  the  soul  of  the  believer  in  Christ  goes  with 
the  assurance  of  Scripture  that  it  will  have  another 
building,  a  house  not  made  with  hands;  that  body 
out  of  which  the  believer  in  Christ  is  said  to  go  as 
from  the  home  of  the  soul  on  earth  to  the  home 
with  the  Lord  in  Heaven. 

The  soul  of  the  person  who  is  not  united  to 
Christ  at  death  is  removed  into  a  condition  that  is 
not  only  abnormal,  but  painful. 

He  enters  into  a  state  for  which  he  was  never 
intended  in  so  far  as  construction  is  related  to  the 
soul. 

There  is  nothing  to  respond  to  his  constitution. 

It  is  a  condition  aggravated  by  the  degree  of 
moral  or  immoral  life  the  individual  has  lived  while 
on  earth. 

But  even  though  the  individual  should  be  the 
most  moral  man  who  ever  lived,  out  of  Christ,  he 


92    Suffering  Due  to  Their  Discarnate  State 

must  suffer  his  abnormal  condition  of  disembodi- 
ment. 

If  it  be  asked  why  does  not  a  Christian  suffer 
from  the  same  abnormal  condition  of  disembodi- 
ment, the  answer  is:  if  the  professed  Christian  be 
a  genuine  believer  he  is  united  to  the  risen  and 
glorified  body  of  the  Lord;  as  it  is  written: 

"  We  are  members  of  his  body,  of  his  flesh,  and 
of  his  bones." 

And  again: 

"  He  that  is  joined  to  the  Lord  is  one  spirit." 

When  the  Christian  dies  he  finds  his  articulation 
with  the  body  of  Christ  realized;  as  out  of  that 
body  he  has  received  his  spiritual  life  and  nourish- 
ment while  on  earth ;  so  the  moment  of  disembodi- 
ment he  finds  the  body  of  his  Lord  a  resource  in 
sustaining  his  new  condition. 

He  finds  his  oneness  with  the  Spirit  of  Christ  the 
delivering  power  from  the  insatiable  desires  of  the 
old  nature. 

There  is  nothing  but  the  purifying  consciousness 
of  his  oneness  with  Christ.  This  oneness  now  fills 
him  with  the  desires  that  the  glorified  Christ  can 
transmit  to  him  without  hindrance. 

Nor  is  this  all — 

According  to  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  Revelation, 
so  soon  as  the  liberated  soul  is  in  Heaven  it  receives 
and  is  clothed  upon  with  a  white  robe. 

The  fact  of  this  robe  is  a  twofold  demonstration. 

It  proves  the  soul  has  form — a  robe  cannot  be 


Suffering  Due  to  Their  Discarnate  State    93 

put  on  that  which  has  no  form;  to  talk  about  it 
would  be  senseless  and  trifling. 

It  proves  the  robe  is  material  of  a  kind,  for  that 
which  is  wholly  immaterial  is  not  placed  upon  that 
which  has  form,  nor  is  it  visible.  The  white  robe 
is  a  temporary  materialization,  but  not  of  flesh.  It 
is  not  the  resurrection  body,  but  a  manifestation 
and  visualization  till  the  resurrection  hour  and  the 
restitution  of  the  body  for  the  earth  sphere  again. 


IX 

THE    FUTURE    SUFFERING    OF    THE 

CHRISTLESS    DEAD    WILL    BE 

ENDLESS  DISEMBODIMENT 

THIS  is  forecast  in  the  question  of  one  of 
the  demoniacs  of  Gadara. 
There  were  two. 

The  spirit  in  one  of  them  besought  the  Lord  in 
the  name  of  his  companions  not  to  cast  them  out 
and  torment  them  by  this  fresh  act  of  disembodi- 
ment. 

The  other  asked  the  Lord  an  immense  and  far- 
reaching  question. 

He  said: 

"  What  have  we  to  do  with  thee,  Jesus,  thou  Son 
of  God  ?  Art  thou  come  hither  to  torment  us  be- 
fore the  time  ?  " 

As  torment  to  them  meant  disembodiment,  and 
they  had  previously  been  disembodied  by  death; 
as  this  embodiment  in  living  other  persons  was  tem- 
porary, it  could  refer  only  to  another  period  of  dis- 
embodiment and  therefore  to  a  period  of  embodi- 
ment of  their  own  before  that. 

Such  a  condition  would  call  for  the  resurrection 
of  these  spirits,  a  restoration  of  body  and  then 
death  again  in  their  own  proper  bodies. 
.   94 


Endless  Disembodiment  95 

Is  there  such  a  thing  taught  in  Scripture  ? 

There  is. 

Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  said  that  all  that  are 
in  their  graves  shall  come  forth.  The  word  for 
graves  signifies  the  burial  places  of  the  bodies.  He 
is  speaking  of  resurrection  of  the  body.  He  says 
there  will  be  two  resurrections,  the  resurrection  of 
those  who  are  His  and  the  resurrection  unto  dam- 
nation; that  is  the  resurrection  unto  final  judg- 
ment. 

This  resurrection  unto  damnation  or  judgment  Is 
called  "  the  rest  of  the  dead."  It  takes  place  at  the 
great  white  throne.  It  occurs  a  thousand  years 
after  the  resurrection  of  the  saved. 

It  is  the  Second  Resurrection. 

The  dead  out  of  Christ  will  be  brought  forth 
from  hades. 

Bodies  will  again  be  given  to  them. 

They  will  be  assembled  before  this  great  white 
throne  and  judged  for  the  deeds  done  in  the  body. 

The  sentence  which  previously  condemned  them 
to  disembodiment  will  be  confirmed. 

They  will  be  sent  forth  to  die  the  second  time. 

This  time  they  will  die  by  fire. 

Their  bodies  will  be  consumed. 

Our  Lord  has  said  the  soul  cannot  be  killed.  To 
kill  is  to  take  away  life,  existence.  He  says  the 
soul  cannot  be  killed,  therefore  existence  cannot  be 
taken  from  it.  The  word  "  kill "  is  never  applied 
to  the  soul.     The  word  "destroy"  is;  but  while 


96  Endless  Disembodiment 

the  word  "  kill "  has  but  one  meaning,  "  destroy  " 
has  more  than  one  meaning,  it  may  mean  moral 
and  spiritual  destruction  and  is  so  used  in  Scrip- 
ture; since  the  word  "  kill  "  cannot  be  used  in  rela- 
tion to  the  soul  and  the  word  "  destroy "  is  so 
used,  and  our  Lord  says  the  soul  cannot  be  killed, 
existence  cannot  be  taken  away  from  it,  then  des- 
troy when  applied  to  the  soul  cannot  mean  the  non- 
existence of  the  soul. 

As  the  body  will  be  destroyed  and  the  soul  will 
never  cease  to  exist ;  as  after  the  death  of  the  body 
there  will  be  no  resurrection,  then  the  soul  will  re- 
main in  a  state  of  disembodiment  forever. 

The  soul  will  be  an  eternal  ghost. 

It  will  no  longer  be  able  to  incarnate  itself.  For- 
ever it  must  remain  invisible.  Forever  it  must 
continue  as  a  derelict  of  humanity. 

It  may  be  asked,  if  the  body  is  to  be  destroyed, 
where  is  the  fire  of  which  the  Son  of  God  so  ter- 
ribly speaks,  calling  it  "  hell-fire,"  where  the  fire  is 
not  quenched  and  the  worm  dies  not  ? 

The  answer  is,  there  is  a  literal  fire  and  a  spir- 
itual fire. 

The  Apostle  James  speaks  of  the  spiritual  fire. 

He  says  the  tongue  is  set  on  fire  of  hell. 

The  word  "  hell "  is  "  gehenna,"  and  gehenna 
means  the  lake  of  fire,  the  second  death. 

Literally  therefore  James  says: 

The  tongue  is  set  on  fire  of  the  lake  of  fire. 

You  know  and  every  one  knows  that  literal  fire 


Endless  Disembodiment  97 

never  has  and  does  not  now  burst  out  in  flame  in  or 
on  a  man's  tongue. 

It  is  not  a  figure  of  speech,  it  is  a  fact ;  but,  it  is 
a  spiritual  fire. 

This  spiritual  fire  is  sin ;  as  it  is  written: 

"  Men — burned  in  their  lust  one  toward  an- 
other." 

This  is  a  fire  that  will  burn  forever  in  the  unre- 
generate  soul,  the  fire  of  sin. 

Nor  is  this  an  interpretation  of  imagination,  it  is 
the  authoritative  announcement  of  the  Son  of 
God. 

Speaking  of  those  who  should  sin  against  the 
Holy  Ghost  that  they  never  should  have  forgive- 
ness of  sins,  He  warns  of  the  danger  of  "  eternal 
damnation." 

Literally,  "  subject  to  eternal  sin." 

That  means  forever  under  the  power  of  sin ;  for- 
ever under  bonds  to  sin. 

But  again  it  may  be  asked  how  is  it  possible  for 
a  soul  to  sin  without  a  body. 

The  answer  is — sin  is  not  in  the  body  at  all. 

"Every  sin  that  a  man  doeth  is  without  the 
body." 

The  word  "  without "  means  "  outside." 

Sin  is  outside  the  body,  it  is  apart  from,  and  finds 
its  source  and  area  independently  of,  the  body. 

Sin  is  in  the  arena  of  the  mind  and  under  the 
operation  of  the  will. 

Sin,  therefore,  is  not  an  expression  of  organs. 


98  Endless  Disembodiment 

but  personality;  and  since  the  soul  is  the  person — 
sin  is  in  the  soul. 

This  is  a  complete  refutation  of  the  doctrine  set 
forth  by  Sir  Conan  Doyle,  that  sin  is  a  matter  of 
physical  construction. 

No !  sin  is  in  the  soul.  It  is  not  the  body,  but  the 
soul,  the  person,  who  sins,  and  whatever  sin  is  com- 
mitted by  the  body  is  committed  by  it  as  the  agent 
of  the  souL  The  soul  when  it  sins  deteriorates  the 
body.  It  is  not  the  body  that  wears  out  the  soul, 
but  the  soul  that  wears  out  the  body.  As  a  con- 
sequence of  its  powers  of  impression  on  plastic 
matter  the  soul  can  so  impregnate  the  body  with 
its  sin  state  that  the  body  will  become  almost  quick 
enough  in  its  organism  to  suggest,  or,  at  least,  to 
meet  instantly  the  thought  of  sin  suggested  by  the 
soul. 

The  disembodied  soul  then  in  eternity  will  go  on 
sinning,  not  in  the  exercise  of  it  through  bodily 
functioning,  but  by  increased  culture  of  desire  in 
the  mind. 

Eternal  sinning  in  the  mind,  the  development  of 
desire  with  no  means  of  gratification,  means  noth- 
ing less  than  eternal  suffering. 

This  is  the  eternal  and  unquenchable  fire  against 
which  the  Son  of  God  so  intensely  warns. 

What  then  is  the  worm  that  dieth  not? 

Listen  to  that  word  of  Abraham  to  the  lost  rich 
man  in  hades: 

"Remember!" 


Endless  Disembodiment  99 

Memory  is  a  blessed  gift.  It  can  bring  back  the 
days  of  old,  the  scenes  of  joy,  the  face  we  loved, 
the  smile  that  greeted  us,  the  happy  and  caressing 
voice ;  and  it  shall  be  as  though  they  died  not,  were 
alive  and  we  felt  again  the  kiss  upon  the  lips,  the 
pressure  of  the  missing  hand  and  walked  with  them 
as  in  the  olden  time  before  death's  sunless  shadow 
fell  upon  our  way  or  the  icy  breath  of  the  tomb 
had  withered,  almost,  every  flower  of  hope  within 
us. 

But  memory  Is  a  torture — a  torture  when  it 
brings  back  days  of  joy  that  can  come  no  more, 
the  vision  of  hope  forever  fled,  the  brooding  wings 
of  black  despair,  lost  opportunities,  the  fatal  step 
that  missed  the  road,  the  red  sin,  the  "  damned 
spot  "  that  will  not  out,  the  regret,  the  remorse  that 
bites  and  gnaws,  and  ever  bites. 

Is  there  a  more  deathless  worm  than  that — a 
memory  like  that  ? 

And  to  the  helplessly  and  hopelessly  lost  soul 
Abraham  said: 

"Remember!" 

The  sudden  death  of  the  body  and  Its  complete 
destruction  in  the  literal  lake  of  fire  Is  terrible 
enough  in  the  fact  that  it  Is  the  end  of  all  hope 
the  Individual  will  ever  again  have  a  body. 

It  would  be  terrible  enough  to  be  condemned  to 
be  a  ghost,  a  mere  shadow  flung  against  the  wall  of 
eternity  with  no  powers  of  manifestation;  but  to 
have  all  the  function  of  the  soul  as  when  on  earth, 


100  Endless  Disembodiment 

to  think,  desire,  to  be  filled  with  all  the  strivings 
and  intents  of  a  personality  that  the  longer  it  exists 
the  more  intense  it  becomes  as  a  personality,  if  by 
nothing  less  than  the  effort  at  expression  and  cul- 
ture which  it  must  make,  this  is  unspeakable  and  is 
not  merely  the  direct  action  of  God  in  imposing  the 
penalty,  but  the  price  and  peril  that  is  involved  in 
the  very  creation  of  a  personality  outside  of  God 
Himself.  The  eternal  God  was  forced  in  the  na- 
ture of  things  to  make  a  personality  with  all  the 
risks  that  must  go  with  it  of  free  exercise  of  will  to 
a  certain  point,  or  else  make  a  machine;  and  this 
would  have  been  no  better  in  the  long  run,  nor  so 
good  as  to  have  made  a  tree.  In  His  determina- 
tion to  create  "  fellows  "  who  should  be  the  recipro- 
cation of  His  own  personality  Hke  so  many  living 
mirrors  that  would  reflect  Him  and  glorify  Him  in 
His  own  character  and,  at  the  same  time  (to  use 
the  phraseology  of  earth),  find  the  companionship 
that  would  deliver  Him  from  the  isolation  of  Him- 
self in  Himself,  He  must  take  the  infinite  risk  of 
those  personalities  becoming  their  own  eternal  ruin. 
The  grace  of  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus 
is  the  rift  in  the  cloud  and  otherwise  darkness,  and 
carries  with  it  to  the  Church  of  Christ,  if  it  can 
see,  the  emphasis  of  the  immense  responsibility  that 
God  in  His  necessity  (to  speak  as  a  man)  has  laid 
upon  it. 

Great  is  the  warning  the  Son  of  God  gives. 

The  terms  are  in  the  emphasis  of  material  things. 


Endless  Disembodiment  101 

Better  He  says  it  will  be  to  take  part  in  the 
first  resurrection  with  one  eye,  or  one  foot  (and 
therefore  He  says  pluck  out  the  eye  and  cut  off 
the  foot  if  it  shall  endanger  your  part  in  that 
resurrection)  than  to  have  a  perfect  body  and 
take  part  in  the  second  resurrection  unto  the  sec- 
ond death,  eternal  disembodiment  and  the  fire  of 
ungratified  sin  forever  in  the  soul. 

And  this  fact  of  eternal  sinning  proclaimed  and 
avouched  by  Him  who  is  the  eternal  headquarters 
of  eternal  truth  sets  aside  and  settles  forever  all 
fallacious  suggestions  of  a  "  second  chance." 

As  death  finds  us  eternity  keeps  us. 

The  major  fact  of  eternal  discarnation  and  along 
with  it  the  eternal  sinning  explains  the  strange  and 
terrible  cry  of  the  second  one  of  the  demoniacs: 

"Art  thou  come  hither  to  torment  us  before  the 
time?" 

They  knew  of  the  second  resurrection  and  the 
second  death  and  all  that  it  meant.  They  knew  that 
then  all  hope  of  materialization  would  be  over 
throughout  endless  eternities. 

They  and  all  the  rest  who  go  over  Into  that 
prison  house  of  the  lost  know  It  to-day. 

There  are  no  illusions  In  that  hell  which  Is  hades ; 
that  hades  which  is  the  vestibule  of  gehenna. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  ALONE  WILL   HAVE 
ETERNAL  EMBODIMENT 

THIS  embodiment  will  take  place  at  the 
Second  Coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
He  will  descend  into  the  upper  air. 

With  the  shout  of  omnipotence  He  will,  and 
with  the  same  ease  with  which  He  created  the  first 
body  from  the  dust,  cause  the  seed  planted  in  the 
body  of  the  Christian  dead  (and  held  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  union  with  the  glorified  body  of  the  Lord) 
to  burst  forth  and  bloom  in  the  identity  of  the  old, 
and  the  beauty  of  a  new,  and  glorious,  body. 

To  this  body  He  will  unite  the  soul  of  the 
Christian  He  brings  with  Him. 

Then  will  that  Christian  for  the  first  time  become 
immortal. 

Here  then  is  the  meaning  of  immortality — not 
continued  existence,  that  is  assured  for  all  souls 
good  or  bad,  but  a  deathless,  incorruptible  body  in 
the  image  and  likeness  of  the  Son  of  God  Himself. 

Since  the  Coming  of  the  Lord  for  His  saints 
precedes  His  appearing  in  glory  with  them ;  and  as 
that  special  and  precedent  Coming  is  not  like  the 

Z03 


Christians  Have  Eternal  Embodiment    103 

appearing  in  glory,  dependent  on  the  fulfillment  of 
certain  predicted  events,  but  may  be  at  any  moment, 
then  as  Christians  we  are  always  standing  on  the 
threshold  of  immortality;  for,  when  He  comes  to 
raise  those  who  have  fallen  asleep  in  His  name  the 
living  who  believe  in  Him  will  not  die,  but  be 
changed  immediately,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye, 
into  the  same  image. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  that  great  saying  of  the 
Lord  to  the  sister  of  Lazarus: 

"  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life;  he  that  be- 
lieveth  in  me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  (when  I 
come)  shall  he  live: 

"And  whosoever  liveth  and  belleveth  in  me 
(when  I  come)  shall  never  die." 

In  all  this  our  Lord  in  the  nature  of  the  case  is 
speaking  of  the  body. 

This  is  evident  by  the  last  statement: 

"  Whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shatl 
never  die." 

Christians  who  live  and  believe  do  die  as  the 
resurrection  proves. 

The  Lord  is  therefore  speaking  of  the  time  when 
His  Coming  will  make  it  impossible  to  die  by  rea- 
son of  the  transfiguration  of  the  body  of  the  be- 
liever into  His  likeness. 

This  is  the  declaration  of  the  Apostle  Paul. 

He  writes: 

"  Behold,  I  shew  you  a  mystery;  (that  is,  he  now 
reveals  the  mystery — makes  known  that  which  has 


104    Christians  Have  Eternal  Embodiment 

been  a  great  secret)  we  shall  not  all  sleep  (not 
all  die)  but  we  shall  all  be  changed. 

"  In  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  at  the 
last  trump:  for  the  trumpet  shall  sound,  and  the 
dead  shall  be  raised  incorruptible,  and  we  shall  be 
changed." 

And  this  is  at  the  Coming  of  Christ  for  His 
saints;  as  it  is  written: 

"  They  that  are  Christ's  at  his  coming." 

From  all  this  it  follows  sons  of  God  and  sons 
of  God  alone  will  have  immortality. 

That  is  to  say,  sons  of  God  and  sons  of  God 
alone  of  the  human  race  will  be  forever  incarnate, 
forever  shining  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  the 
Lord,  filled  with  His  glory  and  endowed  with  His 
powers. 

Wherefore  the  Apostle  writing  to  the  Philip- 
pians  says: 

"  For  our  conversation  (citizenship)  is  in 
heaven ;  from  whence  also  we  look  for  the  Saviour, 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ: 

"  Who  shall  change  our  vile  body  (the  body  of 
our  humiliation — limitation)  that  it  may  be  fash- 
ioned like  unto  his  glorious  body  (body  of  glory) 
according  to  the  working  (energy,  power)  whereby 
he  is  able  to  subdue  all  things  unto  himself." 

Nor  is  this  to  be  all ;  after  the  kingdom  is  estab- 
lished and  He  has  had  his  final  dealings  with  the 
dead  that  do  not  know  His  name  the  Lord  will 
cause  this  old  earth  to  pass  through  purifying  fires. 


Christians  Have  Eternal  Embodiment   105 

renovate  it,  swing  it  under  a  new  heavens,  make  it  a 
new  earth  and  then  come  back  with  all  the  redeemed 
to  fulfill  the  true  purpose  for  which  the  earth  was 
created,  to  make  it  the  eternal  home  and  dwelling 
place  of  a  race  of  immortal,  glorified  men,  each 
man  an  enthronement  of  God  and  a  revelation  of 
the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  His  image  and 
glory. 

This  is  a  concept  worthy  of  God  and  worthy  of 
man. 

It  stands  over  in  splendour  against  the  pitl fulness 
of  the  spiritistic  concept,  its  beggary  on  the  one 
side,  its  utter  vacuity,  and  its  deception  on  the 
other ;  over  against  the  incoherencies  of  its  counter- 
feiting forces  and  the  subtlety  with  which  it  shuts 
out  from  the  soul  the  peril  that  awaits  all  who  are 
not  in  uniorji  with  the  risen  Christ. 


XI 

WE  HAVE  A  FULL  REVELATION   CON- 
CERNING THE  CHRISTIAN  DEAD 

WE  know  where  they  are. 
The  moment  they  are  out  of  the  body 
they  are  in  the  third  heaven,  in  the  coun- 
try called  Paradise,  in  the  place  the  Son  of  God 
went  to  prepare,  the  city  which  Paul  says  was  pre- 
pared in  his  day,  the  Holy  City  which  John  under 
divine  inspiration  so  wonderfully  describes. 

The  moment  they  enter  they  are  clothed  with  the 
white  robe  that  makes  them  visible  to  one  another. 

They  are  with  the  Lord. 

Three  simple  words — ^With  the  Lord. 

But  what  a  world  of  meaning  in  those  three. 

Consider  the  Lord  if  you  will  in  His  earthly, 
human  life  as  He  lived  it  here — full  of  the  beauty 
of  unselfishness,  the  grace  of  tender  compassion, 
speaking  words  that  fell  into  the  hurt  of  the  soul  as 
balm  that  never  was  in  Gilead.  Consider  Him, 
bidding  the  weary  and  the  heavy  laden  to  come  to 
Him  in  the  assurance  that  He  would  give  them  rest, 
not  merely  rest  of  body,  but  rest  of  soul.  Consider 
Him  as  He  says,  "  him  that  cometh  unto  me  I  will 
in  no  wise  cast  out."     Consider  Him  as  with  un- 

io6 


Concerning  the  Christian  Dead      107 

limited  power  He  heals  the  sick,  raises  the  dead, 
stills  the  storm! 

To  be  with  Him !  what  privilege  could  be  more 
blessed  than  that  ? 

What  greater  resource  of  knowledge,  consolation 
and  certitude  of  life  worth  while  could  there  be 
than  to  be  with  Him  ? 

The  Apostle  writing  by  the  inspiration  of  God 
says  the  believer  who  dies  is  "  absent  from  home 
out  of  this  body  and  immediately  at  home  with 
the  Lord." 

"Home!" 

What  a  word  that  is! 

Not  in  some  stranger  country,  exposed  to  the 
cold  tolerance  of  others,  shut  up  to  narrowness,  to 
sore  limitation ;  but  at  home  walled  in  from  every 
assaulting  force,  from  every  wagging,  careless 
tongue  and  misconception,  from  the  disintegrating 
influence  of  sordid  things  that  would  buy  and  sell 
you,  cheapen  you  and  leave  you  worthless  in  the 
end.  At  home  in  close  and  intimate  relation  with 
Him  who  died  for  us,  in  the  joy  and  fellowship 
of  His  presence  who  for  us  men  and  our  redemp- 
tion for  a  while  walked  a  homeless  stranger  here. 

And  because  of  all  He  is  to  those  who  go  hence 
in  His  name  the  Apostle  says:  \ 

"  I  have  a  desire  to  depart  and  be  with  Christ — 
which  is — far  better." 

"  Better  "  Is  a  comparative.  A  comparative  is 
the  extension  of  the  positive  of  the  quality  of  good. 


108      Concerning  the  Christian  Dead 

It  means  that  death  to  the  Christian  is  not  a  dis- 
aster. 

No !    Hear  what  the  Apostle  says : 

"  For  me  to  Hve  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain." 

It  means  that  Hfe  takes  on  a  progression  in  es- 
sence, in  character  and  knowledge. 

It  is  a  sphere  above  that  of  earth  life  as  earth  life 
is  now. 

It  is  described  in  Holy  Scripture  as  a  state  of 
"  rest." 

Rest  does  not  mean  sleep  or  unconsciousness. 

It  is  harmony,  refreshment,  the  soul  finding  its 
true  center  of  moral,  spiritual  and  intellectual  grav- 
ity around  the  glorified  person  of  the  risen  Lord. 

They  live  in  the  company  of  the  best,  the  braviest 
and  the  true  of  earth,  the  aristocrats  of  eternity; 
those  who  have  been  twice  born,  who  trace  their 
ancestry  back  to  the  covenant  grace  and  eternal 
purpose  of  God;  those  who  lived  the  life  that 
counted  for  God,  and  because  it  counted  for  God 
counted  for  man;  those  who  hated  sin  and  loved 
righteousness,  out  of  their  own  sorrows  poured  the 
cup  of  healing  into  the  wounds  and  sorrows  of 
others,  glorified  the  mercy  that  forgave  their  own 
failures  and  lifted  them  steadily  day  by  day  out  of 
self  into  Christ,  into  the  consciousness  of  God  In 
whom  they  joyed  with  joy  exceeding  and  full  of 
glory. 

Those  who  depart  now  into  the  company  of  the 
blest,  the  purified,  those  who  are  rising  upward 


Concerning  thie  Christian  Dead      109 

ever  more  into  the  felicity  of  H^e  that  finds  its  com- 
pensation in  the  activities  of  mental,  moral  and  in- 
tellectual growth. 

They  hear  the  speech  that  Paul  heard  when  he 
was  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven  and  into  para- 
dise, words  which  his  mortal  tongue  could  not  re- 
peat without  stumbling. 

They  speak  that  speech  which  utters  the  soul  at 
its  best.  Down  here  there  are  moments  when  the 
vocabulary  of  earth  has  to  give  way  to  the  un- 
written, unspoken  speech  of  the  soul  finding  its  true 
accents  alone  in  Heaven, 

According  to  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  Revelation 
which  gives  an  account  of  the  martyred  dead  they 
are  interested  in  those  from  whom  they  have  parted 
here  below  on  these  tear-stained  shores  of  time. 

The  angels  of  God  who  in  the  book  of  the  Reve- 
lation are  represented  as  the  messengers  of  the  re- 
deemed bear  back  report  of  the  things  of  earth.  If 
that  report  should  bring  sadness,  the  Lord,  we  are 
told,  will  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes  and 
give  them  an  assuagement  of  grief  He  alone  can 
give.  He  who  once  wept  on  earth  will  know  how 
from  His  own  tears  to  distill  the  comfort  that  shall 
antidote  the  keenest  sorrow. 

Whatever  genius  those  who  depart  had  here  on 
earth  they  will  have  there,  but  multiplied  in  its 
power. 

All  endowment  of  God  finds  its  enlargement 
when  they  pass  from  hence.    Here  men  have  men- 


110      Concerning  the  Christian  Dead 

tal  endowments,  but  not  always  the  powers  of  ex- 
pression. I  once  knew  a  man  with  great  powers 
of  thinking  and  reason.  He  had  great  visions  of 
things;  but  his  vocabulary  was  painfully  limited. 
His  ideas  came  searching  for  words  as  when  a 
blind  man  gropes  for  the  wall.  The  ideas  were 
there  and  they  were  far  in  advance  of  the  average 
man  of  his  surroundings,  but  they  were  strangled 
and  fell  short  of  the  expression  they  required.  The 
soul  of  that  man  freed  from  its  "  muddy  vesture  " 
could,  at  least,  impress  itself  on  the  mind  of  a  kin- 
dred soul  in  the  upper  country;  just  as  here  and 
there  in  this  life  people  intuitively  understand  each 
other  with,  perhaps,  a  word  or  a  look  or  a  pressure 
of  the  hand. 

"  Better  "  applies  in  every  degree  of  endowment. 

The  Scientist  is  a  better  scientist. 

The  Artist  a  better  artist. 

The  Musician  a  better  musician. 

The  Mathematician  finds  himself  in  his  element 
confronting  the  fact  that  the  whole  universe  is  a 
mathematical  problem;  that  all  things  go  back  to 
numbers,  degrees  and  measurements. 

Life  there  is  not  a  droning  nor  a  dream,  but  rich 
activity  of  the  unfolding  soul. 

The  truths  of  redemption  are  seen  in  the  clarity 
of  the  Lord's  presence.  They  look  forward  to  the 
hour  when  the  Lord  shall  bring  them  back  and  give 
them  the  bodies  that  belong  to  them;  they  know 
these  bodies  were  bought  by  blood  and  sealed  by 


Concemins:  the  Christian  Dead      111 


*t5 


the  Holy  Spirit;  for  His  sake  who  purchased  them 
at  such  a  price  as  well  as  their  own  they  want  Him 
to  come  and  show  Himself  victor  over  the  grave. 

And  here,  indeed,  is  the  great  objective  of  re- 
demption, to  make  man  as  God  intended  him,  a 
three-fold  being,  the  continual  proclamation  of  the 
divine  Triunity.  The  Lord  God  might  give  them 
bodies  of  a  new  and  distinct  creation,  but  it  would 
rob  Him  of  His  own  openly  proclaimed  glory  as  the 
resurrection  as  well  as  life.  To  leave  Christians  in 
Heaven  or  even  to  bring  them  forth  in  their  white- 
robed  glory  would  at  the  best  be  but  a  makeshift, 
with  it  all  they  would  be  only  materialized  ghosts. 
Eternal  disembodiment  is  the  state  of  the  unre- 
deemed. For  a  single  body  that  had  once  been  the 
temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  remain  as  a  temple 
overthrown  and  fallen  in  the  dust  would  be  a  scan- 
dal to  the  Son  of  God  in  that  He  Himself  rose 
from  the  dead  and  gave  solemn  promise  of  resur- 
rection to  all  who  should  fall  asleep  in  His  name 
and  failed  to  raise  them,  failed  to  make  all,  whether 
dead  or  living,  like  Himself — Immortal. 

Those  in  Heaven,  whatever  their  failure  to  ap- 
prehend It  while  on  earth,  now  know  that  this  res- 
urrection of  the  "  dead  In  Christ,'*  and  transfigura- 
tion of  the  living  In  Him  Is  His  special  glory. 
They  know  that  this  will  be  His  joy  and  that  He 
is  coming  forth  to  accomplish  It ;  to  them  this  Com- 
ing Is  now  as  they  never  dreamed  or  realized  it  to 
be—"  That  Blessed  Hope." 


112      Conceminsr  the  Christian  Dead 


*& 


They  look  forward  to  the  hour  when  earth  shall 
again  be  their  home,  a  perfect  earth  freed  from  the 
stain  of  sin  and  tears,  of  the  shadow  of  death  and 
the  darkness  of  the  grave ;  when  it  shall  be  a  text- 
book as  well  as  a  home  out  of  which  they  shall 
ceaselessly  learn  of  the  genius  and  the  glory  of 
Him  who  in  the  beginning  framed  it  and  made  it 
to  be  inhabited  forever;  a  world  of  transcendent 
beauty  and  an  immortal  race  of  God-men  whose 
every  joy  of  achievement  should  be  a  fresh 
proclamation  to  the  glory  and  grace  of  Him  who 
redeemed  them. 

Here  is  a  revelation  concerning  the  Christian 
dead  that  is  full  and  satisfying. 

What  folly  to  turn  away  from  it,  so  songful  and 
assuring  to  aching  hearts,  so  self -evidently  true  and 
commending  itself  to  the  mind  and  intellect,  so 
lifted  above  the  inane  and  trivial,  so  rich  with  the 
wealth  of  a  divine  concept,  to  such  a  book  as  "  Ray- 
mond," with  its  incoherent  babbling,  its  worse  than 
foolishness,  its  heart-breaking  emptiness  and  re- 
pellent commonness ;  what  folly  to  turn  away  from 
the  revelation  of  God  to  that ;  or,  to  the  "  New 
Revelation,"  "  The  Vital  Message,"  to  find  in  them 
again  the  guess,  the  imagination  and  unbelief  of 
man,  repudiation  of  the  cross  of  Christ,  the  blood 
of  redemption  and  the  Holy  Word  of  God. 


XII 

WE  HAVE,  ALAS,  A  FULL  AND  COMPLETE 

REVELATION  CONCERNING  THE 

CHRISTLESS  DEAD 

WE  know  too  well  where  they  are,  what 
they  are  and  what  the  future  holds  in 
store  for  them. 

We  know  enough  to  make  us  shudder  and  shrink 
back;  we  know  enough  to  bid  us  go  forth  and 
sound  the  alarm  in  no  uncertain  terms  and  with 
tenderness  and  tears  and  all  praying  warn  those 
who  stand  upon  the  edge  of  their  days  with  only  a 
heart-beat  between  them  and  an  irrevocable  eter- 
nity— an  eternity  without  Christ. 

Can  you  conceive  of  anything  more  terrible  than 
for  a  human  being  in  the  midst  of  life  with  utter 
indifference  to  the  future,  too  absorbed  in  the  fleet- 
ing present  of  time  to  think  of  eternity,  suddenly 
wrenched  out  of  life  and  taken  without  one  touch 
of  Christ  in  the  soul  into  the  limitless  beyond? 

In  bidding  good-bye  to  the  Ephesian  pastors  the 
Apostle  told  them  he  had  not  shunned  to  declare 
unto  them  and  the  people  of  Ephesus  the  whole 
counsel  of  God ;  he  felt  his  skirts  clear  from  the 
blood  of  all  men  because  for  three  years  and  a  half 

"3 


114)      Concerning  the  Christless  Dead 

he  had  preached  and  warned  them  night  and  day 
with  tears.  Paul' was  not  a  man  given  to  mere  emo- 
tionahsm.  You  will  look  in  vain  for  any  exaggera- 
tion in  his  life;  it  was  high  and  sustained  at  a  pitch 
of  unfailing  intensity,  but  in  all  soberness  and  truth. 

So  terrific  was  the  thought  of  the  doom  awaiting 
those  out  of  Christ,  so  heavily  did  the  soul  interest 
of  his  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh  press  upon  his 
heart  that  he  declared  himself  willing  to  be  ac- 
cursed from  Christ  if  thereby  he  might  be  able  to 
save  some. 

Nothing  in  speech  is  more  terrible  than  the 
words  of  the  softest  spoken  man  who  ever  lived, 
the  tender  compassionate  Son  of  God.  He  it  is 
who  coined  the  word  "  hell-fire  "  and  warns  men 
that  it  would  be  better  to  mutilate  the  body  and 
enter  with  it  into  the  kingdom  of  God  than,  as  has 
already  been  said,  with  a  perfect  body  to  go  into 
that  second  death  from  which  the  soul  will  emerge 
forever  a  wandering,  hapless  and  hopeless  ghost. 

But  with  all  words  that  can  be  gathered  and 
every  accent  of  terror  that  may  be  put  into  them 
nothing  looms  up  on  the  horizon  of  time  with  such 
meaning  and  warning  as  the  cross  of  Christ  itself. 
Nothing  echoes  with  such  immensity  and  intensity 
as  the  cry  of  the  forsaken  one,  the  far  reach  of  His 
question,  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  for- 
saken me  ?  '* 

He  was  forsaken  and  was  left  dying  there  as  an 
absolutely  self-deceived  victim  of  His  own  imagi- 


Concerning  the  Christless  Dead      115 

nation ;  or,  He  was  there  in  fulfillment  of  the  eternal 
purpose  of  God,  and  as  the  divinely  appointed  sub- 
stitute for  man  in  the  down  sweep  of  the  wrath  of 
God  that  poured  over  Him  as  the  representative  of 
man  under  judgment  echoed  the  agony  and  sur- 
prise that  will  come  from  the  soul  of  every  human 
being,  finally,  who  has  not  accepted  the  grace  which 
that  cross  reveals. 

There  is  no  need  for  any  further  revelation  con- 
cerning the  dead  out  of  Christ.  We  know  enough 
to  make  us  as  professed  Christians  up  and  doing 
with  the  means  at  our  command  to  save  men,  not 
merely  for  the  poor  thing  that  is  filling  the  air, 
called  "  social  service,"  but  save  men  for  Christ 
here  and  for  their  own  eternal  welfare  when  time 
shall  have  passed  beyond  the  count  of  years.  We 
know  enough  to  make  us  do  that  or  to  put  our 
Christianity  where  it  belongs,  a  mere  profession 
without  meaning  to  God  or  man. 


XIII 

LET  ME  WARN  YOU  NOT  TO  SEEK  TO 
THE  DEAD  FOR  INFORMATION 

LET  me  in  no  uncertain  terms  warn  every 
soul  to  flee  from  Spiritism.  Under  no  cir- 
cumstance to  seek  to  tamper  with  the  un- 
seen world  or  endeavour  to  have  communication 
from  the  dead. 

Let  me  warn  every  unsaved  person  that  in  doing 
so  you  yield  yourself  to  the  influence  and  power  of 
lying  spirits  who  will  hide  from  you  the  awful 
fate  of  discarnation  to  every  one  out  of  Christ 
They  will  hide  from  you  the  terrific  fact  that 
once  disembodied,  hope  is  gone;  that  only  the 
second  resurrection,  second  death,  eternal  sinning, 
eternal  desires  forever  unquenched,  are  in  store 
for  you. 

Above  all,  let  every  Christian  shun  this  Satanic 
and  perilous  ground.  No  more  think  of  having 
an  ouija  board  in  your  home  or  fooling  with  it,  or 
being  tempted  to  put  your  hands  on  tables  in  nerv- 
ous anticipation  with  others  of  more  or  less  psychic 
force  than  you  would  invite  the  arch-enemy  of  God 
and  man  to  dwell  intimately  with  you. 

There  is  no  need  that  any  human  being  should 
seek  to  inquire  of  the  dead. 

u6 


Warning  Not  to  Seek  to  the  Dead      117 

There  is  no  need  to  do  so  because  we  have  a 
full  and  complete  revelation  from  God  concerning 
the  state  of  the  dead. 

The  moment  you  tamper  with  the  unseen  world 
in  never  so  small  a  way  you  put  yourself  on  Satan's 
ground. 

You  throw  yourself  open  to  the  invasion  of  lost 
souls,  the  demons,  who  now  and  then  break  jail 
and  come  forth  to  find  the  human  bodies  that  may 
give  relief  to  their  intolerable  woe. 

You  throw  yourself  open  to  the  power  and  du- 
plicity of  wandering  spirits  who  will  fool  and  de- 
ceive you,  hold  you  in  a  clutch  of  fascination  from 
which  all  the  wisdom  and  sometimes  the  power  of 
God  fails  to  deliver  the  souls  that  surrender  to 
them. 

A  woman  of  high  standing  and  intellectual  cul- 
ture recently  gave  herself  up  to  the  temptation  of 
the  ouija  board.  The  inoffensive  thing  held  her 
night  and  day.  Again  and  again  she  would  retire 
and  determine  to  forget  it  in  sleep.  She  could  not 
sleep.  She  would  call  for  the  board  and  give  her- 
self up  to  it  through  the  hours  of  the  night  till  the 
wan  light  of  the  morning. 

She  could  not  escape  its  claims. 

To-day  she  is  in  a  home  for  the  insane  and  her 
calls  for  that  plaything  that  has  chased  reason  from 
its  throne  are  heartrending. 

Insanity  lies  over  on  the  ground  of  Spiritism, 
lurking  there  in  the  power  of  the  wandering  spirit 


118    Warning  Not  to  Seek  to  the  Dead 

to  seize  upon  the  best  mind  and  make  it  a  pitiable 
wreck. 

Once  when  a  boy  I  saw  a  young  woman,  a  raving 
maniac.  Her  hair  that  had  been  slightly  auburn 
seemed  to  flow  back  from  her  forehead  like  a 
stream  of  living  fire.  Her  face  was  so  strangely 
white  it  sickened  me  to  look  at  it.  Her  eyes  blazed 
with  an  infernal  light.  Her  mouth  was  thick  with 
bloody  foam.  She  gnashed  her  teeth  like  a  wild 
beast  till  it  sounded  as  the  grinding  and  crunching 
of  human  bones.  She  tore  her  clothes  in  an  un- 
speakable recklessness  from  her  rare,  beautiful 
body.  She  cursed  as  no  man  could  curse  till  the 
blood  in  me  seemed  to  freeze.  She  tried  to  kill 
others  and  then  tried  to  kill  herself.  Strong  men 
fought  with  her  in  the  endeavour  to  place  her  in 
the  car  that  should  take  her  to  the  asylum.  She 
was  but  a  frail,  delicate  girl  and  yet  she  flung  those 
men,  a  half  dozen  of  them,  almost  as  if  they  had 
been  wisps  of  straw;  and  not  till,  suddenly,  some 
one  slipped  the  straight  jacket  over  her  head  pin- 
ioning her  arms  helplessly  to  her  side,  could  they 
at  all  control  her  and  then  at  the  last  they  bound 
her  about  the  body  with  strong  cords. 

Something  more  than  mere  insanity  was  hers. 

H  ever  a  human  being  was  possessed  with  a 
demon  she  was. 

To  yield  yourself  to  Spiritism  is  to  throw  the 
door  open  through  which  many  have  passed  into 
the  atmosphere  and  realm  of  immorality. 


Warning  Not  to  Seek  to  the  Dead      119 

A  certain  young  woman  of  the  most  exceptional 
purity  in  thought  and  character  was  led  to  experi- 
ment with  an  ouija  board. 

She  was  amazed  to  find  she  had  what  is  called 
"  the  psychic  force." 

Messages  began  to  come  thick  and  fast. 

At  first  they  were  perfectly  harmless.  They 
were  mysterious.  They  revealed  some  things 
known  only  to  herself.  Many  of  the  things  that 
came  through  she  was  able  to  verify.  The  idea 
that  she  stood,  so  to  speak,  on  the  very  edge  of  an- 
other world  and  could  hold  communication  filled 
her  with  amazement  and  delight.  She  looked  at 
the  sun  of  day  and  the  stars  of  night  with  new  con- 
»cept.  Back  of  all  these  seen  things  was  that  hith- 
erto unknown  world.  What  a  vista  was  open  to 
her  mind.  The  thought  that  she  might  come  in 
contact  with  some  of  the  great  ones  in  the  beyond 
completely  fascinated  her. 

Then  little  by  little  the  messages  began  to  change 
their  character.  Suggestions  came  that  in  a  meas- 
ure surprised  her;  but  they  were  vailed.  Never- 
theless they  left  a  tumult  In  her  mind  and  her  pulses 
beat  with  a  new  force,  she  felt  the  blood  in  her 
veins  oftentimes  grow  hot  as  with  a  sudden, 
strange  heat. 

The  messages  grew  bolder,  from  suggestions 
they  grew  to  open  statements,  they  became  daringly 
tempting  and  openly  obscene. 

In  horror  she  flung  the  board  from  her  and  hid 


120   Warning  Not  to  Seek  to  the  Dead 

her  face  in  her  hands  while  her  heart  seemed  to 
bound  out  of  her  and  her  breath  came  quick  and 
short. 

For  several  days  she  would  not  look  at  the  thing, 
the  memories  of  it  haunted  her ;  but  it  had  a  fasci- 
nation she  could  not  escape.  She  went  back  to  it. 
She  listened  to  it.  It  continued  its  terrible  mes- 
sages. 

She  found  herself  listening  to  them,  learning 
things  she  never  dreamed,  filled  with  curiosity  and 
desire  that  shamed  and  horrified  her  and  yet  held 
her,  till  in  a  sudden  moment  of  temporary  lull  in 
the  message,  she  sprang  to  her  feet,  cast  the  board 
on  the  floor,  stamped  on  it  and  crushed  it,  crying, 
"  I  am  lost,  I  am  lost."  She  was  delivered,  but  the. 
memory  of  it  was  as  though  she  had  passed  through 
a  sewerage  of  human  corruption. 

She  is  not  the  only  one  into  whose  mind  the 
poison  of  wandering  spirits  has  been  poured. 

B.  F.  Hatch,  at  one  time  a  spiritualist,  author  of 
"  Spiritualism  Exposed,"  declares  he  knew  in  his 
day  of  seventy  mediums  leading  irregular  lives, 
some  in  open  license,  and  gives  description  thereof 
in  terms  not  necessary  to  repeat. 

Nor  is  this  altogether  surprising. 

When  once  the  mind  is  thrown  open  to  the 
powers  on  the  borderland  of  this  world  and  the 
unseen,  the  individual  is  liable  to  the  double  as- 
sault of  demons  from  the  pit  and  wandering  spirits 
from  the  dark  zone. 


Warning  Not  to  Seek  to  tlie  Dead      121 

The  very  principle  which  underlies  Spiritism  that 
there  is  no  sin  essentially  considered ;  that  responsi- 
bility for  any  irregularity  in  life  does  not  lie  with 
personality,  but  with  the  physical  construction,  and 
what  is  called  sin  is  simply  the  response  to  the 
needs  of  that  construction,  is  bound  sooner  or  later, 
in  one  direction  or  another,  to  undermine  the  most 
rigid  concept  of  personal  righteousness. 

When  it  is  believed,  as  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle's 
book  would  seem  to  teach,  that  the  believer  and  the 
unbeliever,  servant  of  God  and  servant  of  unright- 
eousness, infidel  and  Christian,  all  go  to  the  same 
place,  that  there  is  no  final  accounting  for  the  life 
lived  here;  that  even  though  the  soul  that  crosses 
over  may  not  reach  the  highest  plane  at  once,  it  will, 
nevertheless,  at  last,  pass  on  and  up  into  the  most 
satisfying  and  delightful  of  experiences — all  this 
underlying  idea  is  bound,  inevitably,  to  break  apart 
the  armour  of  righteousness  and  render  vulnerable 
the  soul  most  exacting  in  rightness. 

It  is  the  little  crevice  by  and  by  widening  into 
the  larger  fissure  that  opens  the  building  to  its  final 
fall. 

Spiritism  leads  to  the  denial  of  "  the  faith  once 
for  all  delivered  to  the  saints." 

The  Word  of  God  speaks  of  the  wandering 
spirits  as  "  seducing  "  spirits. 

As  the  Apostle  writes,  and  as  we  have  seen,  they 
lead  to  apostasy. 

Those  who  yield  to  the  call  from  the  unseen; 


122    Warning  Not  to  Seek  to  the  Dead 

who  accept  manifestations  through  mediums ;  who 
really  believe  what  they  profess;  who  are  sure  the 
dead  on  the  other  side  are  talking  to  them,  as  al- 
ready illustrated,  deny,  finally,  every  fundamental 
of  the  Christian  faith. 

The  cross  is  at  best  but  martyrdom,  the  Son  of 
God  in  His  highest  attainment  simply  a  psychic, 
preternatural  as  admitted,  but  in  no  way  a  specific 
and  unique  redeemer  of  the  souls  of  men.  Since, 
as  they  believe,  communication  comes  from  the 
other  side  of  the  grave,  from  the  dead  themselves; 
since  the  dead  give  full  description  of  the  country 
in  which  they  dwell  as  in  "  Raymond,"  and  in  some 
degree  the  course  of  coming  events,  there  is  no 
need  of  the  Bible.  The  Bible  is,  therefore,  logic- 
ally set  aside ;  and  when  that  goes,  Christianity,  as 
set  forth  in  the  Bible,  goes.  It  is  not  long  after 
that  for  "  new  **  revelations  and  "  vital "  messages. 

God  warns  His  own  people  not  to  seek  to  the 
dead ;  as  it  is  written : 

"When  thou  (the  nation  of  Israel)  art  come 
into  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee ; 
thou  shalt  not  learn  to  do  after  the  abomination  of 
those  nations. 

"  There  shall  not  be  found  among  you  any  one 
that  useth  divination,  or  an  observer  of  times,  or 
an  enchanter,  or  a  witch, 

"  Or  a  charmer,  or  a  consulter  with  familiar 
spirits,  or  a  wizard,  or  a  ne'cromancer.  (A  necro- 
mancer is  a  medium,  or  one  who  purports  to  give 


Warning  Not  to  Seek  to  the  Dead      123 

messages  from  the  dead.  The  word  comes  from 
*  nekros,'  a  corpse,  and  '  manteia,'  to  divine.) 

"  For  all  that  do  these  things  are  an  abomination 
unto  the  Lord  "  (Deuteronomy  18:  9-13). 

"  And  the  soul  that  turneth  after  such  as  have 
familiar  spirits,  and  after  wizards,  to  go  a  whoring 
after  them,  I  .  .  .  will  cut  him  off  from 
among  his  people  "  (Leviticus  20:  6). 

What  God  forbids  is  not  of  God,  but  of  Satan. 

The  demonstration  of  that  is  found  in  the  words 
of  the  demoniac  of  Gadara. 

This  is  what  he  said: 

**  What  have  I  to  do  with  thee,  Jesus,  thou  Son 
of  God  most  high?" 

This  was  the  confession  of  the  spirits  in  the  man. 

They  confessed  they  had  no  part  nor  lot  with  the 
Son  of  God. 

They  were  under  the  bonds  of  Satanic  power. 

They  belonged  to  the  region  of  the  pit  and  not 
to  the  plane  of  Heaven. 

They  knew  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God,  but  it  was  a 
knowledge  that  did  not  avail  them. 

They  believe  In  the  unity  of  God  and  know  this 
unity  is  concretely  manifested  in  the  Son  of  God, 
in  whom  dwelleth  all  the  fullness  of  the  godhead 
bodily;  but  it  makes  them  tremble;  as  it  is  written: 

**The  devils  (demons)  also  believe  and  tremble.** 

Our  Lord's  own  attitude  toward  demons  and 
unclean  spirits  of  every  sort  in  casting  them  out 
and  rebuking  their  assaults  bears  witness  not  only 


124   Waminff  Not  to  Seek  to  the  Dead 


*t3 


of  the  character  of  the  demons,  of  all  who  seek  to 
thrust  themselves  into  this  world  from  the  unseen, 
but  His  judgment  of  them. 

Demons  and  wandering  spirits  are  wholly  of 
Satan. 

So  markedly  true  is  this  that  He  would  not  allow 
them  to  testify  in  His  behalf. 

Mark  tells  us  of  a  man  possessed  by  an  unclean 
spirit,  a  demon  who  cried  out  and  said: 

"  Let  us  alone  (they  are  always  in  companies  or 
pairs  when  possible) ,  what  have  we  to  do  with  thee, 
thou  Jesus  of  Nazareth?  art  thou  come  to  destroy 
us?  I  know  thee  who  thou  art,  the  Holy  One  of 
God." 

They  knew  what  the  nation  of  Israel  did  not 
know,  failed  to  apprehend,  even  with  the  light  of 
their  own  Scriptures,  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was 
the  Holy  One  of  Israel. 

But,  we  are  told,  the  Lord  "  rebuked  him,"  and 
bade  him  come  out. 

Again  it  is  written  and  in  the  same  connection: 

"  He  cast  out  many  devils  (demons)  and  suf- 
fered not  the  devils  (demons)  to  speak,  because 
they  knew  him," 

"  He  suffered  them  not  to  speak:  for  they  knew 
that  he  was  Christ." 

It  is  an  immense  warning  that  though  a  spiritist 
should  come  to  you  and  tell  you  he  believed  in 
Jesus  Christ,  accepted  Him  as  the  Son  of  God  and 
believed  in  His  redemption,  or  sought  under  the 


[Warning  Not  to  Seek  to  the  Dead      125 

influence  of  a  spirit  to  testify  in  His  behalf,  you 
should  reject  his  confession  and  refuse  to  accept 
his  testimony. 

The  apostles  took  this  attitude. 

When  a  young  woman  possessed  with  or  under 
the  "  control  "  of  a  wandering  spirit  followed  Paul 
and  Silas  in  the  streets  of  Philippi  and  cried  out 
that  they  were  the  servants  of  the  Most  High  God 
who  showed  unto  the  people  the  way  of  salvation, 
Paul  commanded  him  to  come  out  of  her. 

The  foresight  and  wisdom  of  God  in  all  this  is 
manifest. 

The  Devil  has  transformed  himself  into  an  angel 
of  light,  and  his  ministers  into  ministers  of  right- 
eousness. 

This  is  the  testimony  and  warning  of  Holy 
Scripture. 

They  speak  in  the  name  of  Christ,  deceive  in  the 
name  of  Christ. 

At  first  they  lead  the  soul  on  in  the  simple  way 
of  faith,  not  disturbing  it.  Presently  they  be- 
gin to  lead  more  and  more  to  the  contemplation  of 
Christ  in  His  earthly  life,  His  spotless  manhood 
and  deeds  of  healing.  Little  by  little  they  suggest 
doubts  about  His  death  as  of  sacrificial  value. 
Farther  and  farther  away  do  they  lead  from  the 
cross.  Step  by  step  doubts  are  raised  about  the 
correctness  of  the  text;  after  that  It  Is  not  long 
before  the  Christ  of  God  as  Redeemer  and  Saviour 
is  set  aside. 


126   Warning  Not  to  Seek  to  the  Dead 

Always  the  Devil  is  willing  you  shall  believt 
in  an  ethical,  but  never  in  a  sacrificial  Christ. 

Always  he  is  willing  you  shall  do  good  works 
and  cast  the  hope  of  your  hereafter  on  the  merit  of 
your  own  character  of  righteousness.  It  is  not 
strange  then  that  testimony  after  testimony  of  a 
certain  class  of  spiritists  is  to  the  sweetness  and 
light  of  the  Son  of  God;  but  if  you  follow  them 
with  the  keen  intent  of  discovering  their  motive 
you  will  find  them  by  and  by  regretting  that  this 
beautiful  soul  of  Christ  and  all  His  wonderful  life 
have  been  so  misinterpreted  (?)  and  overloaded 
with  a  theology  foreign  to  His  intent. 

That  is  their  scheme  and  they  never  fail  to  round 
up  at  that. 

They  speak  and  testify  exactly  like  some  modem 
ministers  of  Christ  (?)  in  the  pulpit. 

Since  Christ  and  His  apostles  repudiated  Spirit- 
ism, refused  to  receive  testimony  from  it,  cast  out 
the  demons  and  the  spirits  that  sought  to  speak  in 
His  name;  since  the  Word  of  God  in  unqualified 
terms  forbids  the  follower  of  God  to  have  aught  to 
do  with  spirits,  under  no  circumstance,  or  by  any 
means  whatsoever,  to  seek  communication  from 
the  dead,  then  the  professed  Christian  who  to-day 
meddles  in  any  fashion  with  these  things  violates 
the  express  command  of  God  and  throws  himself 
open  to  His  sudden  swift,  providential  judgment  as 
in  the  case  of  Saul,  whom  He  slew  because  he  had 
turned  away  from  the  Word  of  God  and  inquired 
of  the  dead. 


XIV 

THERE  NEVER  WAS  A  TIME  WHEN 

CHRISTIANS  MORE  NEEDED  TO  BE 

ON  GUARD  THAN  NOW 

THE  world  is  growing  better.  That  is  the 
watchword.  Everybody  says  it. 
It  is  repeated  in  ever  varying  phrase. 
It  is  the  utterance  of  the  public  speaker  and  in  its 
attempted  demonstration  fills  the  literature  of  the 
hour. 

There  is  a  higher  tone  in  morals,  that  is  the  affir- 
mation; and  nothing,  it  is  said,  more  positively 
proves  it  than  the  fact  this  great  nation  has  volun- 
tarily turned  from  the  drink  habit  and  determined 
the  coming  generation  shall,  not  only  not  be 
tempted  by  alcohol,  but  shall  know  nothing  of  its 
poison  and  power  of  woe. 

The  churches  are  everywhere  entering  into 
social  work. 

They  have  come  out  upon  broader  and  more 
practical  planes. 

They  have  ceased  to  live  up  in  heavenly  places 
and  drawn  nearer  to  the  world  in  which  they  dwell 
every  day. 

They  have  gotten  rid  of  the  disturbing  idea  that 
127 


128         Christians  to  Be  On  Guard 

Christ  is  coming  back  personally  and  visibly  to  this 
world. 

They  are  not  bothering  themselves  with  thoughts 
about  a  golden  city  in  Heaven,  they  are  wholly 
taken  up  with  cities  down  here  that  are  altogether 
far  from  golden. 

Everywhere  men  in  the  pulpits  are  talking  gran- 
diloquently of  the  new  world  movement  for  up- 
building it  and  setting  it  in  the  plane  of  righteous- 
ness. 

The  "  principles  of  Christ "  are  to  be  applied  in 
every  department  of  world  activity. 

God  is  the  Father  of  all  men  and  all  men  should 
know  it. 

All  men  are  brothers,  partakers  of  a  common 
divinity  and  ought  to  be  brought  together  that  they 
may  make  manifest  the  divinity  of  love  and  gra- 
ciousness  naturally  in  them. 

The  supreme  article  of  faith  is  the  golden  rule. 

It  should  be  insisted  upon  as  the  center  article  of 
faith  because  it  is  the  one  credal  expression  in 
which  all  can  join  without  dissent,  Jew  and  Gen- 
tile, Unitarian  and  Trinitarian,  Idolater  and  Mate- 
rialist. The  practice  of  the  golden  rule,  it  is  said, 
will  soften  the  asperities  of  life  and  make  common 
fellowship  easier. 

The  sermon  on  the  mount  has  precedence  of  the 
sermon  from  the  cross. 

The  sermon  on  the  mount  tells  men  how  they 
ought  to  live,  the  sermon  from  the  cross  tells  men 


Christians  to  Be  On  Guard         129 

how  Christ  died  for  men  because  they  are  not  able 
to  live  as  they  ought. 

The  sermon  on  the  mount  is  more  pleasing  and 
acceptable  to  all  than  the  sermon  from  the  cross; 
for  the  sermon  there  is  preached  in  the  crimson  of 
the  blood  which  protests  against  the  works  of  self- 
righteousness  and  substitutes  the  righteousness  of 
God. 

The  concentrated  effort  of  the  world  and  the 
Church  now  is  to  make  the  earth  a  decent  and  safe 
place  to  live  in. 

The  world  and  the  Church  have  made  common 
cause  for  this  objective. 

Theology  has  fallen  into  desuetude  and  in  many 
respects  has  become  not  only  innocuous,  but  thor- 
oughly obnoxious. 

The  name  of  Christ  was  never  so  sounded  forth. 

His  humanity  is  exalted  by  both  the  Church  and 
the  world. 

The  Church  and  the  world  sing  together  about 
His  goodness. 

The  Church  and  the  world  both  agree  He  came 
into  the  world  to  lay  down  the  principles  of  a 
social  reform  that  will  abolish  old  abuses  and  bring 
in  a  millennium  of  mutual  understanding  among 
peoples  so  that  speedily  war  will  be  like  a  forgotten 
nightmare. 

Never  were  the  Church  and  the  world  in  such 
happy  concord. 

All  faiths  and  no  faiths  can  sit  together  in  bliss- 


130         Christians  to  Be  On  Guard 

ful  unity  and  listen  to  the  eulogies  of  the  man 
Christ  Jesus  and  rejoice  that  such  a  being  ever 
came  to  earth  to  show  men  the  way  of  peace  and 
righteousness. 

The  man  who  has  any  particular  conviction  con- 
cerning doctrine  and  insists  on  testifying  about  it  is 
put  in  the  background  with  a  pleasant  forgiveness 
or  gentle  toleration  of  his  enervating  partizanship 
and  narrowness;  while  the  man  who  has  no  doc- 
trine and  no  conviction  save  the  conviction  that 
there  should  be  no  doctrine  finds  the  higher  seat 
and  is  asked  to  lead  the  meeting  in  the  name  of  that 
Christ  who  said  if  any  man  should  do  His  will  he 
should  know  of  the  doctrine,  and  soon  makes  it 
manifest  that  he  has  advanced  far  beyond  Paul  who 
said  the  preacher  should  hold  fast  the  form  of 
sound  words,  meaning  thereby  sound  doctrine. 

Back  of  all  this  is  a  pleased  Devil  and  his  cohorts. 

The  more  the  world  becomes  pure  and  clean  on 
a  natural  basis ;  the  more  the  ethical  standard  is  ex- 
alted; the  more  Christ  is  named  as  a  good  man, 
even  a  divine  man  and  leader  of  others  up  the  high- 
way of  innate  righteousness,  the  more  it  will  please 
him  who  in  his  magistral  determination  to  make 
this  world  at  last  his  own,  and  that  with  the  help 
of  the  professing  Church,  counts  these  things  but 
as  the  elements  of  success  in  his  ever-unfolding 
Satanic  plan. 

It  is  time  for  Christians  taught  of  God  and  who 
believe  the  Bible,  the  written  Word,  is  the  revela- 


Christians  to  Be  On  Guard         131 

tion  of  His  mind  and  will,  to  be  on  guard,  not  to 
allow  themselves  to  be  deceived  with  catch  words 
and  sounding  phrases,  and  to  remember  that  such 
an  one  as  Paul  the  Apostle  said  (at  the  risk  of 
being  labelled  a  back  number  and  indicated  as  liv- 
ing in  a  circumscribed  area  whose  lines  he  had 
ploughed  around  himself  by  sticking  too  close  to 
words  and  mere  forms  of  thought)  if  any  one, 
even  were  he  an  angel  from  Heaven,  should  preach 
any  other  Gospel  than  what  he  preached,  of  a  Christ 
who  "  gave  himself  for  our  sins,  that  he  might  de- 
liver us  from  this  present  evil  world,  according  to 
the  will  of  God  and  our  Father,"  he  should  be  ac- 
cursed at  the  Coming  of  Christ. 

These  are  the  days  of  peril  of  which  the  Apostle 
has  warned  the  Church. 

The  underworld  of  demons  and  the  world  of 
wandering  spirits  are  both  greatly  excited. 

When  our  Lord  came  the  first  time  these  worlds 
were  greatly  excited.     They  were  all  agog. 

Satan  flung  himself  on  every  path  the  Son  of 
God  sought  to  tread. 

He  tempted  Him  on  the  mount  with  the  vision 
of  world  rulership  He  might  have  without  going  to 
the  cross. 

The  Devil  failed. 

Having  failed  with  Christ  the  Head  he  has 
tempted  the  Church,  the  professing  Body. 

He  has  succeeded  in  a  great  degree. 

Winning  the  world  for  Christ  and  setting  up  Hia 


132         Christians  to  Be  On  Guard 

kingdom  while  He  is  away,  ruling  over  the  world 
and  swaying  it  like  a  regency  in  His  name,  has 
a  glamour  about  it,  and  all  the  organs  at  full  octave 
are  already  playing  the  triumphal  march. 

All  the  spirit  world  is  moved  with  the  wisdom 
of  the  fallen  angel. 

The  spirits  of  the  dark  zone  are  coming  forth  in 
a  spiritistic  revival. 

A  wave  of  spiritism  is  sweeping  the  whole  earth. 

Raymond  says  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  world  will 
soon  be  spiritistic. 

Should  it  increase  and  the  faith  of  the  true 
Christ  be  in  a  large  measure  swept  out  of  the  great 
cities,  then  all  the  legislation  enacted  and  all  the 
efforts  made  by  the  righteous  to  stem  the  tide 
would  be  futile  and  the  community  would  be  sub- 
merged beneath  an  overflow  of  the  sewerage  of  im- 
morality and  the  abomination  of  unbelief  and 
infidelity. 

The  tide  will  deepen. 

It  will  submerge  multitudes,  specially  in  the  great 
cities  where  contact  is  closer  and  contagion  quicker. 

There  will  be  great  signs  and  wonders ;  so  great 
that  if  it  were  possible  they  should  deceive  the  very 
elect,  that  bit  of  salt  God  always  reserves  to  Him- 
self in  the  earth  against  the  day  of  corruption. 

The  Lord  has  given  full  warning. 

He  has  said: 

"  Behold,  I  have  told  you  before." 

It  will  be  the  mighty  and  final  effort  of  Satan  to 


Christians  to  Be  On  Guard         133 

capture  the  world  and  enthrone  himself  in  the  light 
of  progress  and  education  as  its  easily  accepted 
prince  and  potentate. 

It  is  witness  he  is  preparing  the  way  for  the 
revelation  of  the  super-man,  the  occult  man,  the 
man  concerning  whom  all  unconsciously  the  world 
has  been  getting  ready,  talking  about  him  and 
vizualizing  him  in  its  plays,  its  dramas,  spectacles 
and  literature. 

It  is  a  common  feeling,  the  current  of  it  is  run- 
ning more  strongly  and  universally  than  many 
dream,  that  man  is  divine  and  has  in  him  powers 
never  yet  developed,  powers  that  are  akin  to  deity. 

The  study  of  man  has  never  been  as  universal 
and  analytical.  He  has  taken  himself  apart 
anatomically.  He  has  set  himself  apart  as  skin 
man,  flesh  man,  bone  man,  muscle  man,  nerve 
man,  and  now  with  insistent  intensity  he  is  seeking 
to  analyze  himself  in  his  soul  substance  and  its  es- 
sential relation  to  the  unseen.  He  who  is  by  na- 
ture utterly  materialistic  and  antagonistic  to  every- 
thing that  is  spiritual  is  searching  to  find  the  un- 
seen and  spiritistic  man  that  is  either  himself  or  the 
product  of  a  combination  of  selves.  He  is  inter- 
ested not  in  spiritual,  but  spiritistic  things ;  and  be- 
tween the  two  there  is  a  measureless  distance. 
That  which  is  spiritual  has  in  it  the  substance  and 
character  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God.  That  which 
is  spiritistic,  in  itself  has  no  relation  to  God,  and  in 
essence  is  changelessly  antagonistic. 


184         Christians  to  Be  On  Guard 

The  belief  is  that  some  day  out  of  all  this  study 
and  analysis,  out  of  all  this  education  and  culture 
of  the  psychic  there  will  rise  a  particular  specimen 
of  super-man  who  will  point  the  way  to  the  great 
things  of  which  humanity  is  capable. 

The  bonds  will  be  thrown  off  and  man  will  be 
seen  as  the  mental  power  in  the  earth  sphere,  able, 
presently,  to  control  its  forces,  not  by  mere 
mechanics,  but  by  the  exercise  of  an  unleashed 
will. 

Too  long  this  will  has  been  dormant,  subservient, 
ready  to  accept  its  apparent  limitations. 

Levitation,  hypnotism,  telepathy,  the  principles 
underlying  wireless  telephony,  the  relation  of  mind 
to  mind,  the  sudden  concentration  of  all  minds  in 
one  mind  and  will  that  flings  a  crowd  as  a  unit  of 
force,  all  hint  and  suggest  an  outreach  of  terrible 
power  yet  coming  to  the  hand  of  man. 

The  phrase,  "  the  Coming  Man,"  is  not  infre- 
quently on  the  lips  of  men. 

Whenever  some  great  vision  of  what  man  ought 
to  do  is  set  up  and  is  not  yet  realizable,  men  say, 
"  wait  till  the  Coming  Man  arrives." 

So  we  hear  of  the  "  new  man,"  and  the  "  new 
woman." 

"The  Coming  Man!" 

The  Word  of  Ck)d  has  a  long  while  ago  given  the 
portrait  of  Him. 

Between  fifty  and  sixty  titles  are  accorded  Him 
in  Holy  Scripture. 


Christians  to  Be  On  Guard         135 

The  Prophet  Ezekiel  announces  Him  as  one  who 
will  boldly  say,  "  I  am  God." 

Isaiah  represents  him  as  saying: 

"  I  will  be  like  the  Most  High." 

Paul  tells  us  He  will  show  Himself  as  God. 

He  will  be  the  representative  of  that  spirit  of 
self-deification  that  is  now  operating  in  man. 

Spiritism  is  the  impulse  behind  it,  and  Spiritism 
is  but  the  agency  in  the  hands  of  that  great  fallen 
angel  who  still  retains  his  title  as  the  prince  and 
god  of  this  world  and  of  long  date  is  determined  to 
fulfill  and  function  it. 

It  is  the  prelude  of  the  hour  that  will  begin  with 
a  false  peace,  a  false  prosperity,  the  world  acclaim- 
ing a  false  Christ,  seeing  in  this  bland  and  winning 
personage  as  he  will  first  reveal  himself,  the  Com- 
ing Man  for  whom  the  world  has  long  waited  as 
the  realization  and  glory  of  man's  best  powers,  and 
a  millennium  brought  in  by  education,  self-culture 
and  self -development.  An  hour  that  will  end  with 
the  mask  torn  from  the  face  of  the  super-man  and 
the  wild  orgie  of  the  damned  loosed  from  their 
prison  pit  and  the  submerging  tide  of  the  revolted 
spirits  of  the  spirit  zone,  till  the  earth  shall  rock 
like  a  ship  in  the  storm,  and  all  the  unbound  powers 
of  hell  shall  bring  in  that  time  of  tribulation  such 
as  the  Son  of  God  says  the  world  never  saw  and 
never  will  see  again — ^the  wild  upheaval  of  all  that 
is  against  God  and  His  Christ  till  the  shadow  of 
the  old  eclipse  and  chaos,  moral  and  physical,  seems 


186         Christians  to  Be  On  Guard 

to  be  upon  the  quivering  earth  as  it  staggers  like  a 
drunken  man  in  the  path  of  its  orbit. 

It  is  Satan's  wild  desperate  fling  against  God's 
Christ  in  the  determination  to  put  his  own  son 
on  the  throne  of  the  world  and  hold  it  through 
him. 

It  will  fail,  of  course. 

God's  Son,  the  true  Super-man,  will  arise  from 
His  borrowed  throne  in  Heaven  and  come  forth  to 
smite  this  partnership  of  man  and  Devil  and  bring 
in  the  kingdom  of  everlasting  righteousness  and 
truth. 

Spiritism,  therefore,  while  it  bears  witness  of 
the  coming  of  Satan's  hour,  bears  witness  also  of 
the  Coming  of  Christ  as  the  true  King  and  God  of 
this  world. 

Every  accent  of  unbelief,  all  the  subtleties  of 
spirit  invasion  and  all  the  apparent  triumph  of  Sa- 
tanic power  are  but  the  witnesses  that  the  day  will 
break  at  last  and  the  radiant  face  of  the  kingly 
Christ  shall  be  seen  before  whom  a  liberated  world 
will  bow  in  adoration  and  proclaim  His  praise. 

Since  it  is  true  according  to  the  Word  of  God 
that  before  our  Lord  appears  in  His  glory  He  will 
come  as  a  bridegroom  comes  for  his  bride ;  since  it 
is  true  He  will  come  to  take  the  true  and  regener- 
ated Church  to  Himself  that  she  may  be  above  the 
wild  storm  that  will  sweep  the  earth  in  the  short 
reign  of  Satan's  super-man ;  as  it  is  true  there  is  not 
a  single  predicted  event  between  us  and  that  mo- 


Christians  to  Be  On  Guard         137 

ment  when  He  will  shout  the  Church  up  to  Him- 
self, then  the  call  to  the  Church  to  be  ready  is  more 
insistent  now  than  ever. 

Long  ago  He  said: 

"  Watch  ye  therefore:  for  ye  know  not  when  the 
master  of  the  house  cometh,  at  even,  or  at  mid- 
night, or  at  the  cock-crowing,  or  in  the  morning: 

"  Lest  coming  suddenly  he  find  you  sleeping. 

"And  what  I  say  unto  you  I  say  unto  all, 
Watch." 

He  did  not  come  at  even,  the  midnight  is  on  us, 
here  and  there  are  sounds  of  the  cock-crowing. 

The  Cock-crowing! 

I  have  heard  it  in  the  mountain  country.  Far 
up  on  the  mountain  side  chanticleer  announced  the 
midnight  passing  and  the  morning  hour  at  hand; 
then  in  the  valley  far  below  an  answering  cry  took 
up  the  midnight  challenge,  and  farther  away  an- 
other, and  yet  another  till  the  whole  air  was  full  of 
cock-crowing  and  the  thin  grey  morning  began  to 
touch  the  edge  of  midnight  darkness. 

And  what  is  cock-crowing  but  the  fulfillment  of 
divine  prophecy,  the  answering  signs  of  the  times 
which  tell  us  He  is  near?  signs  in  the  professing 
Church,  in  the  nations  of  the  Roman  earth,  signs 
amid  blind  and  unbelieving  Judah,  Jerusalem  de- 
livered, the  symbolic  Euphrates  drying  up,  the 
shadow  of  Antichrist  growing  deeper  as  we  turn 
our  eyes  to  the  East  and  everywhere  this  quiver  of 
the  unseen  world,  of  imprisoned  demons  and  wan- 


198         Christians  to  Be  On  Guard 

dering  spirits  getting  ready  to  greet  him  and  give 
him  the  all  hail. 

Midnight,  we  say,  is  always  darkest  before  the 
dawning. 

Well  may  we  watch  in  this  darkness,  this  spiri- 
tual midnight,  listen  to  the  cock-crowing  as  here 
and  there  it  is  sounding,  wait  and  be  ready  for  the 
morning. 


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